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Home / World

Vanished without a trace: the mystery of the girls who went missing

By Candace Sutton of news.com.au
news.com.au·
31 Dec, 2016 06:34 AM7 mins to read

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These girls vanished without a trace from Perth over the last 30 years. Photo / Supplied

These girls vanished without a trace from Perth over the last 30 years. Photo / Supplied

They are the Perth girls who never came home, whose families still miss them and would give anything to know what happened, even just to confirm the worst.

Missing and presumed murdered, the young women who just vanished may number up to more than 20 since 1980.

For the families of the missing, their lost loved ones remain frozen in time, news.com.au reported.

The longest unsolved mystery is the disappearance of teenager Patricia Broun, who has not been seen since June 1953.

Her parents died without knowing what happened to their beloved daughter, who left her Mt Lawley home for work one morning and never returned.

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Here is a few of the young women who vanished without a trace.

JULIE CUTLER

June 20 1988

University graduate Julie Leanne Cutler had been living overseas before she returned to Western Australia and moved in with a friend who lived in Fremantle, south of Perth.

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The 22-year-old former theatre student at the West Australian Institute of Technology, now Curtin University, had found work at the Parmelia Hilton Hotel in Perth's CBD.

In late May or early June, Julie rang her father to report an alarming incident in which she had been driving home in her Fiat sedan from work along the Stirling Highway.

Julie told her father, Roger, that a car had followed her closely for several kilometres along Stirling Highway, almost touching her rear bumper at times and seemed to be trying to force her off the road.

Julie Cutler. Photo / Supplied
Julie Cutler. Photo / Supplied

As she approached a turn-off in the beachside suburb of Cottesloe, the car pulled alongside and then suddenly veered in front of her.

Ms Cutler swerved around it and sped away, later reporting the incident to police.

As her stepsister related, years later, she called "extremely upset. She thought whoever was in the car wanted to run her off the road or force her to pull over."

At 12.30am on June 20, 1988 Ms Cutler left the Parmelia Hotel, after a staff function. She was never seen again.

Weeks later, Ms Cutler's empty two-tone grey 1963 Fiat was spotted in the ocean off Cottesloe Surf Club boatsheds.

Forensic tests showed that the ignition and headlights had been on when the car entered the water, the front driver's side window was open, the rear doors were locked and both front doors were unlocked.

Police ruled out suicide because Ms Cutler's body would have been washed ashore if she had driven the car into the surf.

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A year later, a white Parmelia Hilton uniform blouse was handed in to police.

The blouse was a size 14 - Ms Cutler's size - and was one of 37 made exclusively for the hotel's staff.

It had been found about the time Ms Cutler went missing with a pair of black pantyhose in a plastic bag under a table at the King Kebab takeaway in Centreway Arcade, Perth, a five-minute walk from the Parmelia Hilton.

Police said Ms Cutler was believed to have been carrying the bag after changing into a black evening dress.

Ms Cutler's father Roger has previously said that he thought about his daughter every day.

Lisa Brown. Photo / Supplied
Lisa Brown. Photo / Supplied

LISA BROWN

November 10, 1998

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Lisa Brown has been missing since 12.30am on 10 November 1998 from the Palmerston Street, Perth City area.

The slim, blonde-haired 19-year-old had been working as a prostitute on the Perth streets and was seen with two men that night.

She spoke briefly with one of the men, before heading onto Brisbane Street.

Last seen wearing jeans, a black T-shirt and black high heeled boots, Ms Brown never returned home to her boyfriend that night.

She left two young children and an untouched bank account.

HAYLEY DODD

July, 1999

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Hayley Dodd. Photo / Supplied
Hayley Dodd. Photo / Supplied

Hayley Marie Dodd was just 17 years old, but looked younger because of her petite build.

On July 22, 1999 she travelled through Perth from Mandurah and 400km north to Dongara, on the coast.

A week later, she decided to hitchhike 170km to a friend's farm inland near the tiny town of Badgingarra.

Ms Dodd was wearing brown suede boots, jeans, a black top, grey hooded jacket and carrying a brown backpack with the word EQUIP on the flap.

A woman gave her a lift some of the way, and then she was seen walking along the North West Road, Badgingarra.

On the Thursday she vanished, Ms Dodd was seen by several witnesses who either gave her a lift or saw her getting into a truck.

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Possibly the last sighting of her was a female sighted down on the verge of an intersection not far from her destination, rummaging through a backpack.

Ms Dodd did not make it to the farm and has never been seen again.

On July 30, 1999, Hayley's mother reported her missing.

SARAH MCMAHON

November 8, 2000

Sarah McMahon. Photo / Supplied
Sarah McMahon. Photo / Supplied

Sarah McMahon was a happy and healthy 20-year-old when she vanished in late 2000 after leaving her workplace to meet someone in the northeastern Perth suburb of Bassendean.

Ms McMahon had been working part-time at an irrigation company in Claremont and left the business at around 5.15pm for what would have been a 30-minute drive to her intended destination.

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Ms McMahon's sister, Amanda, found her Ford Meteor sedan by chance 12 days later in the carpark of the Swan Health Service, in Middle Swan in northeastern Perth about a 15-minute drive from Bassendean.

A friend of Ms McMahon's had an unconfirmed sighting of her driving on Great Eastern Highway, Greenmount, not far from Bassendean.

Sarah McMahon has not been seen since, nor has any other trace of her been found.

Mobile phone data shows she received four calls on her phone on the day she went missing.

Two police investigations and an inquest did not identify a person responsible for what police believe is Ms McMahon's murder.

Ms McMahon's other sister, Kate Kaaks, said before Christmas 2015 that the disappearance had a profound impact on her life and had left her parents, Daniel and Patricia, emotionally scarred.

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She said her parents still suffered from the doubt surrounding the disappearance.

"If anyone has any information regarding Sarah's disappearance, please don't let us go on for a 16th year without knowing what happened to our Sarah," she said.

At Ms McMahon's inquest, WA State Coroner Alistair Hope said the circumstances in which she disappeared were "sinister".

"I have confidently been able to exclude the possibility that she died by way of natural causes," he concluded.

ROBYN SANTEN

Robyn Santen with husband Troy. Photo / Supplied
Robyn Santen with husband Troy. Photo / Supplied

On Saturday August 8, 2015 Robyn Santen was with work colleagues at the Grapeskins Wine Bar in Northbridge, in Perth's CBD.

The 36-year-old contracts engineer and mother of two young children left the hotel at around 11pm to return to the home she shared with her husband Troy in West Leederville, a nine-minute taxi journey.

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She then left home in her silver Volkswagen. The following day, Ms Santen's vehicle was located at a car park at City Beach, 10km west of the wine bar.

Her phone and keys were inside the car.

Police divers found no trace of her, and her distressed family travelled from NSW to issue a plea on television for clues as to her whereabouts.

Despite extensive inquiries by police her whereabouts remain unknown.

Troy Santen and Robyn's brother and sister-in-law, former My Kitchen Rules contestants Andrew Paton and Emma Donnelly, set up a "Robyn Santen - we miss you" Facebook page.

Security footage released by WA Police Media shows Robyn, dressed in a black and white dress and jacket, at the Grapeskin Wine Bar some time after 10pm.

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