Pod Insights Casefile True Crime The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron - Episode 1 About this episode With Casefile on a short break, we thought this would be a great time to shine a light on some of the shows that may have flown under the radar for many of you. These are shows we've put our hearts into and are really proud of. Today, we’re sharing another one of those shows — The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron.
Back in 2018, we covered this case as Case 80: Beth Barnard. But this ten-part series goes far deeper. It’s a long-form investigation, written and hosted by Vikki Petraitis — who co-authored The Phillip Island Murder, the book that first brought this story to public attention.
The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron revisits the events of that night in 1986, when 23-year-old Beth Barnard was found brutally murdered, and 35-year-old Vivienne Cameron—who was the prime suspect in Beth's murder—disappeared without a trace.
Across ten episodes, Vikki examines the women at the centre of the case, the evidence, the forensics, the witness accounts, and the many conflicting stories that have shaped public opinion for nearly forty years. It’s a complex, haunting mystery that continues to raise more questions than it answers.
We’re releasing the first episode here on the Casefile feed. You can find the full ten-part series by searching for The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron, wherever you get your podcasts.
I hope you enjoy the series.
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 From journalist Olivia LaVoix, the creator of the hit investigative series The Bakersfield Three, comes the new Casefile 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.
0:34 Speaker 01 I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.
0:47 Speaker 02 Everybody listen up.
0:48 Speaker 01 Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed and the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.
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1:37 Speaker 00 Hi, it's Casey here. As you probably know by now, Casefile will be back with all new episodes in March 2026 for what will be our 10th year. We will also be releasing some bonus content and other things to mark the occasion, so keep an eye out for that. But earlier this year, you might have noticed that we released the first episodes of some of the Case File Presents shows we've produced in the Case File feed. The decision to do so came after I learnt something surprising while talking with people at our live events. Many Case File listeners had no idea that we produce other shows outside of Case File, and some had never even heard of Case File Presents.
2:21 Speaker 00 It dawned on me that if someone is a big enough supporter of our show to come to a live event but hasn't heard of our production company, then clearly we need to do a better job of highlighting the other stories we've put so much care and work into. For those who don't know, Case File Presents is our broader production platform. While Case File is our flagship show, we've also created a number of other podcasts under the Case File Presents banner. Our level of involvement differs from project to project, but we've played a direct role in all of them.
2:56 Speaker 00 Today, we're sharing another one of those shows: The Vanishing of Vivian Cameron. Back in 2018, we covered this case on Case File as Case 80: Beth Barnard. But this 10-part series goes far deeper. It's a long-form investigation written and hosted by Vicky Petradus, who co-authored The Phillip Island Murder, the book that first brought this story to public attention. The Vanishing of Vivian Cameron revisits the events of that night in 1986, when 23-year-old Beth Barnard was found brutally murdered, and 35-year-old Vivian Cameron, who was the prime suspect in Beth's murder, disappeared without a trace.
3:41 Speaker 00 Across 10 episodes, Vikki examines the women at the centre of the case, the evidence, the forensics, the witness accounts, and the many conflicting stories that have shaped public opinion for nearly 40 years. It's a complex, haunting mystery that continues to raise more questions than it answers. We're releasing the first episode here on the Case File feed. You can find the full 10-part series by searching for The Vanishing of Vivian Cameron wherever you get your podcasts. Now, here's episode one.
4:26 Speaker 04 Now, I always felt that it could be resolved that she would have to be somewhere, that she couldn't have just disappeared like that. And the fact that was said that she jumped from the bridge, that wasn't convincing for me. So I just thought, well, she has to be somewhere. She can't just have disappeared.
4:47 Speaker 00 In April of 2018, my podcast, Case File True Crime, featured Case 80, The Mysterious Murder of Beth Barnard. This is one of those cases that poses more questions than it does answers, and it elicited a dramatic response from our listeners. In the mid 1980s, Phillip Island was home to approximately 4,000 residents. The close-knit community was rocked to the core when on the morning of September 23, 1986, the mutilated body of 23-year-old farmhand Beth Barnard was found stabbed to death in her family home.
5:29 Speaker 00 The last person to see Beth alive was her married boss, Fergus Cameron, with whom Beth was having an affair. Fergus's wife, Vivian Cameron, became the number one suspect in Beth's murder. However, the day that Beth's body was discovered, Vivian's car was found abandoned next to the Phillip Island Bridge, and she was never seen again.
5:57 Speaker 00 To explore what's come to be known as the Phillip Island murder in more detail, we asked true crime author Vicky Petradis, who co-wrote a book about the case in 1993, to create a series dedicated to exploring the murder investigation in more detail.
6:16 Speaker 00 In this podcast, Vicky speaks to friends and family members of those involved, and pieces together the final moments leading up to the crime with the help of police records and witness statements. If anyone could revisit the case to try and make sense of what happened, Vicky was the one.
6:37 Speaker 00 Coronial inquests have concluded that Vivian killed Beth before taking her own life. But Vivian’s body has never been found, and many questions and harrowing elements surrounding the case remain.
7:22 Speaker 05 My name is Vicky Petratas, and I have been writing true crime books for over 25 years. The first book I wrote was The Phillip Island Murder. When I sent a proposal off to publisher John Kerr, he liked it, but he said to me, “Since you’re a teacher, not a writer, I’d like to pair you up with a journalist to co-author it with you.” John introduced me to journalist Paul Daly, who at that time worked for The Sunday Age. I’d never met a journalist before, or another writer for that matter, and it was a great match. Paul quickly became as interested in the case as I was, and it had the added benefit of me watching Paul shape the story.
8:06 Speaker 05 I learnt so much from the experience, and once the book was released, I too had become a real writer. I want to rewind for a moment to the origins of The Phillip Island Murder book. I first got the idea to write the book when I heard the story of Fergus, Vivian and Beth at a teacher conference of all places. It was for a programme set up to help kids deal with divorce. The speaker told the audience that Vivian’s family had funded the programme because they felt that the tragedy that happened in her adulthood was directly connected to the trauma of her parents’ divorce in her childhood.
8:49 Speaker 05 Vivian’s father had left the family when she was eight years old, and when her own marriage broke down when her son had recently turned eight, she just snapped.
9:00 Speaker 05 According to the story at the conference, the murder of a young farmhand named Beth was the tragic result of a woman who hadn't dealt with her grief. It accumulated and she killed.
9:14 Speaker 05 So there I was, sitting in the audience, looking for a case to write about, and this one seemed perfect. Of course, I assumed that the family would welcome a book because it would also help get their message across. I was wrong. The minute I entered the local Phillip Island newspaper office to search for articles on the case, the woman in charge came out and asked me what I wanted the articles for. And I told her that I was writing a book, and she told me to wait and then disappeared into an office. And when she came back out, she said, "I've just rung the family, and they don't want you to write the book." And in her tone, I heard an expectation that I would do what I was told. But I guess there's something about being told not to do something
9:57 Speaker 05 that makes all of us want to do that thing even more. I'd already spoken to people who really wanted the book written, friends of Vivian and Beth's. But there seemed to be two camps on the island, friends of the Camerons, who would never talk, and the friends of the women who needed to talk.
10:15 Speaker 05 We respected and understood the position of those who didn't want to talk. But the people who did speak to us did so because they felt a book might bring answers. Someone must know something. And that's what we all thought in the beginning. When a case doesn't have a conclusion, it leaves people forever to wonder what really happened. The truth of this case, the Phillip Island murder, is that we may never know any more than we know now.
10:44 Speaker 05 But of course, the hope for this podcast is that someone out there knows something that could make a difference, and that they will come forward.
10:54 Speaker 05 So where do you begin a story that ends in the death of one woman and the disappearance of another? A story that has rippled through the years and still makes people wonder what really happened in the small hours of Tuesday the 23rd of September 1986? Perhaps before the dying though, we should start with the living. Before a murder happens, there is a convergence of people and circumstances that brings everyone together for that one fatal moment. So to begin, we need to rewind back from September 1986 to see who Beth Barnard and Vivian Cameron were, before they were forever cast together in history as victim and killer.
11:40 Speaker 05 The Cameron family were an important family on Phillip Island. It's hard for non-islanders to understand, but in the small community, the landowners and the politicians are the leaders. The Cameron family had both among their ranks. Fergus Cameron was educated at Scotch College and then he spent a decade working in real estate. He married Vivian Janice Candy in December 1976 and the couple moved to the Phillip Island family farm in Ventnor, where Fergus's brother Donald also lived with his wife Pamela. The third couple in this tragedy that would play out in September 1986 was Fergus and
12:23 Speaker 05 Donald's sister Marney and her husband Ian Cairns. They were all involved in the community. Donald Cameron was a Phillip Island councillor and his wife Pam was a physiotherapist. Marney was a nurse at the Wally Hospital. And Fergus Cameron was a farmer and a part-time ranger at the Penguin Parade. His wife Vivian was employed at the Phillip Island Community House.
12:48 Speaker 05 So who was Vivian Cameron? Sadly, her sister Deirdre and brother Keith are gone, and those left to speak about her are friends from the island. Women who were young mums with her, women who've always questioned how their friend could have driven to the home of another woman and killed her with all the ferocity of a horror movie.
13:11 Speaker 05 What was Vivian like? For one, she was a passionate advocate for other women on the island. She was one of the founding members of the Community House, a place where women could go and learn skills and connect with each other. Another founding member was Sue Chadwick.
13:29 Speaker 06 Vivian, I felt that it should have been more about women. And men could have a go too, but there must be time for women to go.
13:38 Speaker 05 So was she a bit of a feminist?
13:41 Speaker 06 I think she had a strong mind and strong thoughts. And when I did certain things that were not acceptable in the community, she would laugh and say, "Geez, I wish I could do that. I wish I could break out like that." So I think she wanted to burst out and be something really good and better and heard of in the community. But she seemed to be suppressed, as if she was living under a bit of a thumb. We used to talk about the farm, and I'd say to her, "You always seem so calm." And she'd say, "Well, I'm not inside, and it's not that easy being a farmer's wife." And I said, "Oh, I thought you'd have a lot of time there,
14:26 Speaker 06 particularly with the family, you know, all the space around you and everything like that." And she said, "Yes, it's good, but sometimes it's hard fitting in." So I felt that she was sometimes under a lot of pressure. I don't know if that was the strength of the family or she felt she didn't live up to their expectations. But I think she tried really hard to be what everybody wanted her to be.
14:54 Speaker 05 Over the years, I've spoken to a lot of Vivian's friends and I loved hearing stories about her. Like the time one friend was stuck at home with a special needs child and Vivian just showed up on the doorstep with a casserole and a bottle of wine, no questions, no fanfare, just her being there for a friend. And I've spent a lot of time going through notebooks from 1991 when I first began researching the case five years after the murder. Memories were fresher back then and I've made a scrawling note from a friend called Lisa who remembered Vivian saying around 1983 or 1984 that if she had gone to a pre-marriage class with Fergus, she never would have married him.
15:38 Speaker 05 Another friend I spoke to way back then was Evelyn. She described spending time with Vivian when the kids were at kinder and she loved her dry sense of humour. She said that Vivian was a hard worker and Evelyn remembered seeing her with baby Hugh in the pusher alongside his mother as she marked sheep. She was a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of person. Evelyn said that Vivian had joined Toastmasters, which was a group to help build your confidence in public speaking. Some of this was to make up for feeling on the outer among the Clannish Camerons.
16:12 Speaker 05 From what Evelyn told me, Vivian felt lonely in the extended family she'd married into. And perhaps the feelings of isolation were exacerbated by an increasingly distant husband. But while it seemed to her friends that Vivian wasn't happy in her marriage, in 1986, in a small community, the subject was not open for discussion. Vivian's own father had left the family in the late 1950s when she was eight. And as well as being affected by the loss, Vivian suffered the shame of being from a broken home at a time when divorce was rare. Talking about her own crumbling marriage was something that she only hinted at.
16:54 Speaker 05 The picture of her going to marriage counselling on her own is a sad one. She spoke of these things to friend Sue Chadwick.
17:02 Speaker 06 She did go along for marriage guidance, but Fergus refused. So, in our talks, when we were in the car going to meetings, she'd talk a little bit about her home life and how much she adored her children and would do anything for them. And I know, speaking to the principal, he said she was such a good mum, popping into the school and seeing how the boys were going and if there was anything she could do. So I think she was a very good mum,
17:34 Speaker 06 a very fair mum, and a hard worker on the farm too. So she more than contributed.
17:42 Speaker 05 Ironically, it was a close friend of Beth's who revealed another side to Vivian. In a small community like Phillip Island, everyone knows almost everyone else. Beth's friend Wendy Orchard had a farm in McFee's Road Rill, just down the road from Beth's. While Wendy and Beth had bonded over their love of horses, it was horses that led Vivian to Wendy's door. Wendy offered riding lessons. Vivian Cameron was one of her pupils.
18:14 Speaker 07 Vivian actually came to me a couple of years before and had some riding lessons of all things. Yeah, so she wanted to learn to ride. I can't remember how many times she came, but quite regularly there for a couple of months. She was very keen to learn how to ride. We had a fenced enclosure that we could teach people who didn't ride to ride in, so she would come and have a lesson and ride round in there. And it was just something that she wanted to do for herself. But yeah, she just wanted to learn to ride. Vivian, they're just a really genuine woman who just appeared as though she wanted to
18:59 Speaker 07 better herself and fit in more with the community. She just seemed as though she was just wanting to learn different skills.
19:08 Speaker 05 A lot of people at the time told us how in her final months, Vivian had lost weight and had her hair coloured. Some concluded that this was because she was getting ready to leave and take the boys to Melbourne. But Sue Chadwick saw it differently.
19:25 Speaker 06 I felt that she was perhaps doing those things to make herself more attractive to Fergus, to be a bit more competition, so to speak, with Beth, because that had been going on for some time and Vivian had known about it.
19:43 Speaker 05 But if that was true, her efforts were in vain. Here's how her husband, Fergus, described that time. These are Fergus's words, but not Fergus's voice.
19:55 Speaker 02 I would have thought it was obvious to Vivian that I was having an affair with Beth, who was working on the farm on a permanent basis. I could see that even more strain was building on our marriage and all sexual relations between Vivian and myself had been non-existent for the past two to three months before Beth's death and prior to that was very rare. I might add that I was working 90 hours a week, which was not helping. It had got to the point that if I had any sexual relations with Vivian, it would have been an enormous feeling of guilt towards Beth. Although Vivian didn't say anything, I could tell that she felt rejected and I tried to compensate by doing all the things a loving husband should do, such as making her feel comfortable and making her wanted and needed in other ways.
20:40 Speaker 02 And I used to confer with her in everything but our own personal relationship.
20:46 Speaker 05 So did Vivian see the writing on the wall? Or was she a woman desperate to save her marriage? According to Vivian's sister-in-law, Marney Cairns, she was both worried and desperate. In a later statement, Marney would write: "In about May this year, Vivian and I decided to go out for lunch on a weekday that we both had off and also decided to see more of each other. This resulted after we'd met for a cup of coffee shortly after the shearing had finished in April. As a result, we did see more of each other and Vivian confided in me about different matters. In May 1986, Vivian Cameron confided to me that she was concerned about her husband and the long hours he was working,
21:30 Speaker 05 both on the farm and at the Penguin Parade." On or about 4 June 1986, Vivian Cameron asked me to lunch at her home and she told me of her concern about the relationship between her husband and Beth Barnard. We spoke about this for some time and she told me that she'd been so anxious that one time, in desperation, she telephoned Lifeline for help. I urged her to seek counselling, but she said that she felt her husband would not agree to participate in this.
22:06 Speaker 05 While Vivian seemed to her sister-in-law to be uncharacteristically bitter toward Beth, she told Marnie, if it wasn't Beth, it would probably have been someone else. A colleague from the community house, Isabel Atticote, described her impressions of Vivian and the marriage.
22:25 Speaker 07 There were comments that she made that made me think, "Your marriage is not happy, is it?" We used to meet and have conferences between us about what we had to do and what have we. And one particular time, she said, "Come out to the farm, come out to my house", and I went out there. And it was getting near lunchtime and I said, "Oh, well, I'd better go, I'll let you have your lunch", she said. And she said, "Oh, don't worry, don't worry, he's out working", and I thought, "Yeah, you're not really very happy",
23:07 Speaker 07 I just felt that she wasn't terribly happy in the marriage.
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24:45 Speaker 01 I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody listen up! Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.
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25:48 Speaker 05 When Fergus Cameron was interviewed after the murder, he described an increasing anger boiling up in his wife as he kept denying the closeness he had with the 23-year-old Beth Barnard, the woman they'd employed to help on the farm.
26:04 Speaker 05 A friend of Vivian's told me that his constant denials that anything was going on between him and Beth were slowly driving Vivian crazy.
26:13 Speaker 07 She used to be very aware of when she had to pick up the children and she wouldn't leave the children on their own.
26:23 Speaker 05 Vivian's friend Isabel inadvertently touched on something that could trigger Vivian's absolute fury. It was the cause of the last big argument between Vivian and Fergus before the night of the murder. This is how Fergus described it in his plea statement.
26:41 Speaker 02 Each morning I used to go down to the shearing shed at 7.30am to commence the day's activities. And quite often I would have to be home by 9am to pick up one of the children. And as Vivian works at the community house in Cowes, I would take my son Hugh to kindergarten on some occasions. But most of the time, I would have him with me. Approximately seven weeks ago, on a Monday morning, I was late picking him up at the house as I was helping Beth loading some hay. I caught up with Vivian in Watts Road and she was furious with me and she abused me for spending my time with Beth loading the hay and that she had had enough. I can't remember what else she said, but it was along the lines of us getting help immediately to save our marriage.
27:26 Speaker 02 But I said something like, "Don't be stupid", and then drove to the racetrack.
27:32 Speaker 02 Vivian was right behind me at this stage and stopped at the front gate at the racetrack. Vivian and I had a talk, but I have no idea of the conversation, but it was the last we had of a personal nature prior to the events of last Monday night.
27:50 Speaker 05 The marriage that seemed to collapse slowly in full view of friends and family, didn't start off like that. Vivian and Fergus married in December 1976, and had Dougal in 1978, and Hugh in 1981. In the early days, Vivian's sister-in-law thought they were close, when she and her husband, Vivian's brother Keith, visited. She described Vivian as an earth mother, someone who was incredibly calm and unruffled, a doting mother. Vivian's sister-in-law said, "Fergus was one of those men that women would fall in love with. He was charismatic, they were in love." But over the years, the loving relationship she saw between Vivian and Fergus changed.
28:35 Speaker 05 One Christmas, there was clearly something wrong. Fergus left the group and went and had a nap, and missed Christmas dinner. Vivian's friends started to get a similar impression too, especially in the lead-up to September 1986. Friend Sue Chadwick, who spent a lot of time at the community house with Vivian, described what she saw.
29:00 Speaker 06 I remember going up to a friend's place called Evelyn, and meeting Vivian and Fergus there. They were there for a cup of tea, but they were both very, very quiet. And I thought, I didn't feel a sense of exuberance or enthusiasm. And I thought, this is strange. I don't think that it was an easy conversation that was carried out between the three or four of us.
29:34 Speaker 05 One thing all Vivian's friends agree on is how much she loved her two little boys, Dougal and Hugh. Ironically, when Beth Barnard started working on the Cameron farm, she was charmed by the two little boys as well. In a tape she made for a friend overseas, she says, "I'm always nice to them, they're so cute. Hughes just falls asleep on your lap. We call them Hughal and Dougal."
30:00 Speaker 05 Beth's family chose not to contribute to the book. Their sense of loss felt agonising. Over the years, I've interviewed a lot of people who've lost loved ones in tragic circumstances, and I understand their loss and how hard it must have been for them to come to terms with how she died. This kind of crime leaves an imprint that may fade but never disappears completely. When we were researching the book, Paul Daley and I spoke to one of Beth's friends Denise. She described Beth as bubbly and full of life, quite the opposite to Vivian's calm and quiet. Denise told us about a trip that Marie and Beth took to the Maldives,
30:44 Speaker 05 and how they saw a palm reader on the beach who read their palms. He stopped when he got to Beth's and he said he couldn't read hers and hurried away. They'd all laughed it off at the time and never gave it another thought. Denise gave us the tape recording of Beth and Marie having dinner at Beth's house. Joining them for a while was Fergus Cameron. Beth and Marie would make tapes of themselves chatting and send them to Denise, who by that stage had moved to London to work. The tape has been lost over the years, but I still have the transcript that I made at the time. Beth was having problems with a guy she knew from the Penguin Parade.
31:25 Speaker 05 They were friends, but the guy perhaps felt more for Beth than she did for him. He sent her flowers, she didn't keep them, but rather gave them to friends. And he came around uninvited and mowed her lawns. These are her words, and here's how I remember her saying it. I've got this problem how he keeps mowing my lawns and I don't want him to because I feel as if I owe him something when he does it. And he mowed them again on Monday, and I get home and I yelled at him, and he got really pissed off, and so anyway, he just took off and comes back Monday night. And I thought, oh beauty, I've got rid of him now. And he comes back Monday night and he got mad at me and fed income. I just feel like telling him where to go now. And then...
32:09 Speaker 05 He came to work at the Cameron's on Tuesday because we were landmarking all day. And I was in a real shit and I kept trying to find other jobs to do. And he just comes and takes over my jobs and tells me what to do. And Fergus thought I was being really good trying to do all these other things. And I was just trying to get away. I'm just so sick of him. I wish they'd do something to stop him coming around. We gave him all these hints not to come around tonight. So if he comes around, I'll think I just, I'll sock him out.
32:37 Speaker 05 Beth doesn't sound afraid of the man who mowed her lawns and left her flowers, just really annoyed. Beth had moved to the island a couple of years earlier and worked at the Penguin Parade. Her friend and colleague from those days, Graham Bergen, described how the new girl on the block settled in.
32:56 Speaker 07 There were a few people that spent a bit more time with Beth than others.
33:03 Speaker 07 And because Beth was such an outgoing person and she knew to the island and she was a bubbly, young, you know, 20-year-old.
33:14 Speaker 07 It was a, I don't want to say that, a new toy to be played with. It wasn't like that. It was just that someone new to the island, there's a new person here. Let's get to know them. They're interesting. And Beth was a good communicator because, you know, part of her role and function at the park was to talk to people. And she, she was good at it. A lot of the men down here were attracted to her. Got to remember way back then, we used to have a nickname for Phillip Island. We used to call it Blokes Island. Maybe not so much like that now, but there weren't any women down here, especially young, single women. There weren't any. And if they came here, you know, on times out of 10, they'd get frightened away because, you know, a lot of the blokes down here at that time,
33:58 Speaker 07 they were either builders, labourers, or, you know, most of them were surfers. And then a lot of the other people living here, maybe had grown up here all their life and they are involved in businesses or farming community. It was isolating for most people. And, you know, if you got married and had a family, well, you were lucky. So for Beth to move in down here, she was moving into that sort of environment where she was a novelty for a lot of the men that were down here.
34:33 Speaker 05 I always wondered what Beth saw in Fergus. At 36, he was so much older than her, and he had a wife and two children. She was 23. I put that question to Graham. He didn't know the answer either, but he speculated.
34:51 Speaker 07 It might have been easier to hide if she was doing it that way. She mightn't want people to know that she was having a relationship with anyone. So doing that with a married man might have been an easy way of sort of hiding the fact she was having a relationship. Or it might have just been for pure convenience. Being with someone day in, day out, working with them, you start to feel comfortable with them. So the normal barriers that you have up, because you're not really interested in having a relationship. If you're only seeing the people for an hour or two here and there, well, you're not going to sort of go there if you're not really wanting to. But if there's someone that you're seeing day in, day out for hours of time, you start to get comfortable in the space. And that's when that barrier drops away.
35:38 Speaker 05 Beth's girlhood friend, Wendy Orchard, lived a couple of houses down from Beth in McFeas Road, Rill. They bonded in their teens over their shared love of riding horses, and they'd stayed friends. As soon as Beth finished her agricultural degree in Melbourne, she moved to the island to live.
35:57 Speaker 07 She was a bright and bubbly personality, but she was also, yeah, she was a very good friend. She was very loyal. She would have a go at most things, like, you know, we'd do all sorts of things together. We actually helped each other do our housework.
36:15 Speaker 07 Because we both hated it. We both hated it. So we would, yeah, we would help each other do our housework. It was a really funny time, actually. Oh, yeah, we used to put music on.
36:30 Speaker 07 I'd turn it up loud and we'd, you know, have the music going, we'd sing and be silly and doing each other's housework. It was quite crazy really. And, and of course, we rode horses together as well. So we'd often put the horses in the float and go down to the beach at Cape Willamette and ride along the Willamette Beach.
36:53 Speaker 05 Wendy told a story about how, the summer before she died, there was a crisis at the penguin parade. Baby penguins were starving when their parents weren't bringing them enough food. Beth rallied a bunch of friends to help out for hours each night with the baby penguins.
37:12 Speaker 07 One summer, could have been 12 months before, the penguins were starving and I would go out to the penguin parade every night. And it was Beth and I, and I don't know who the other girls were, but somebody would have gone and got pilchards from tastings or somewhere through the day. And we would wander around weighing baby penguins and tagging them and feeding them pilchards. Because the mothers, well, the adult birds weren't bringing anything home for them to eat and they were starving. And I think that was the summer before she died. There was certainly no partying or anything going on at that point in time because we were all too tired by the time we'd spent two or three hours
37:56 Speaker 07 after the penguin parade feeding baby penguins. It was just, she got all her friends involved in. I can't remember if Fergus or any of the actual other staff ever stayed behind and helped.
38:09 Speaker 05 Not surprisingly, while the affair with Beth Barnard was becoming more intense, the relationship between Fergus and his wife Vivian was cooling. Fergus himself described the deterioration of his marriage.
38:25 Speaker 02 During the first few years of our marriage, we went through difficult times, asking ourselves, why did we get married? But we weren't great ones for talking about it, though. This was because we both come from different backgrounds. At about the time of the birth of our two boys, our relationship was at its closest.
38:46 Speaker 05 But things deteriorated when Beth Barnard started working at the Penguin Parade. By April, Beth was also working on the Cameron farm. Around mid-May, the workers at the Penguin Parade had a party and Beth invited them back to her place. Fergus was the only one who went, and that night, their relationship became sexual. Fergus saw her a couple of times before he went off for a family holiday in May, even though Fergus wrote in his statement that he was, quote,
39:18 Speaker 02 "Determined that the relationship between Beth and myself should not continue because of my wife and two children, and this was going totally against my values I did hold."
39:31 Speaker 05 But that didn't happen. When he got back, the two took every opportunity to see each other. Fergus described walking along the beach after work, or sitting in cars, or going back to Beth's place. And this relationship didn't go unnoticed by Vivian, and she started to accuse Fergus of giving special treatment to Beth around the farm.
39:53 Speaker 05 Nearly a year into their secret relationship, Beth and Fergus decided to end it when she left for her trip to the Maldives. But it didn't stick, and the minute she got back, they started seeing each other again. It was around December 1985 that Vivian walked into the shearing shed and caught Fergus hugging Beth. Here's how Fergus described it.
40:17 Speaker 02 Vivian's reaction was immediate. She asked me to go back to the house with her. I did not go to the house, but stood in the garden with her, and she asked me if I was having an affair with Beth. I said, "No, we are very good mates." I can't remember, but there was a one-sided conversation with Vivian, very distraught, and I was answering her questions with a yes or no, denying any affair with Beth. During this conversation, she said that she had tried to talk to me about our relationship, but had given up because I wouldn't talk. At this stage, I still wanted to keep our marriage intact, mainly for the boys' sake.
40:59 Speaker 05 After being caught in the shearing shed, Beth Barnard began applying for jobs off the island. Clearly, this was getting to be too much for the young woman. Vivian was rattled too. When Fergus arrived home at 5:00 in the morning after a Christmas party at Beth's, she was furious. Here are Fergus's words.
41:20 Speaker 02 I arrived home shortly after 5 o'clock, hopped into bed and thought Vivian was asleep. She wasn't, and she immediately started attacking me. She punched me in the face to begin with, and I rolled over onto my stomach. And she punched me on my back, and she was crying, extremely distraught, wanting to know why I was so late. I said that it was a good party, and after about five minutes she quietened down. And I held her as tight as I could, and she cried some more, and I went to sleep.
41:53 Speaker 05 By early February 1986, Beth had quit her island jobs at the Penguin Parade and on the Cameron Farm, and got a job in Warrabee, which would have put 170 kilometres distance and a two-hour drive between her and Fergus on Phillip Island, effectively ending their relationship.
42:15 Speaker 05 She was all set to move when Fergus sat with her at Penguin Parade and told her he didn't want her to go. And she spoke to the boss and was immediately reinstated.
42:26 Speaker 05 She was also re-employed on the Cameron family farm and worked there for another seven months until the Friday before she died. Friends like Wendy Orchard warned Beth against the relationship with Fergus.
42:41 Speaker 07 I can remember her telling me a little bit about it. And I can remember saying to her, Beth, you don't want to go down that road. You don't want to get involved there.
42:54 Speaker 07 But, you know, she was a fairly private person, well, to me, about that sort of stuff. She knew I knew the family and everybody in it. So I guess she was, yeah, maybe a little bit embarrassed about what might have been going on. I just remember saying, Beth, you don't want to go there. You don't want to do that.
43:19 Speaker 05 And so Vivian, Fergus and Beth move inevitably toward the convergence that would leave two of them dead and one of them facing detectives, exposing the relationship's secrets he'd tried to keep hidden for so long.
43:42 Speaker 00 On the next episode of The Vanishing of Vivian Cameron.
43:46 Speaker 06 It was a very awkward situation because neither Vivian or Fergus would verbalise anything to me. They would look at one another. There was very long, intense looks between the two of them. But they never said anything. So I kept questioning, you know, saying, look, I need to know what's happened so that I can assess the injuries and then decide, you know, whether we need to call the doctor.
44:13 Speaker 05 Keith said Vivian seemed distressed as if she wanted some advice from me. However, I thought that whatever bothered her could be sorted out at the weekend. I still have trouble with my decision.
44:26 Speaker 06 They were both clearly aware of what had happened. And it was like a pact. They were together on what had happened, but...
44:35 Speaker 00 They weren't wanting to tell anybody else.
44:43 Speaker 00 Thanks for listening. If you'd like to hear the rest of The Vanishing of Vivian Cameron, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.
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