Cold case murder haunts brother 25 years on
“I remember coming home from running around like you do when you’re a kid and I could just tell something was going on in the house.
“It messes up your mind as a kid to have a sister snatched away from you like that. I lost my childhood.”
Andrew says the ensuing years and the failure to obtain justice for Clare went on to “obliterate” his small, close-knit family.
His mother Vera went from being carefree to tormented, forever struggling to cope with the loss of her daughter.
“We never really talked about what happened to Clare in the house because we couldn’t, it was just too much,” he says. “But the night before mum died she broke down, asking ‘why did this happen to us?’.
“We were living on Thompson Rd in Norlane after moving from Mordialloc in the late 80s when Mum and Dad split up. It was going to be a fresh start.”
Clare was in Year 8 at Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College, a smart young girl who had excelled in school.
She had friends in many social circles and would often travel to Melbourne for sleepovers.
In 2010, retired detective Noel Anderson, who was the district detective inspector at the time of Clare’s murder, told the Geelong Advertiser that police had been met with a “wall of silence” after the teen’s death when trying to interview teenagers known to hang out at the CBD mall.
The former detective said police had battled with an us-versus-them attitude towards authorities that had made it hard to extract information. And their job was made all the harder Friday, December 18 to Saturday, December 19, 1992 Mid-afternoon: Clare is dropped at Geelong’s Little Malop St mall with a friend. Late afternoon: She leaves the mall alone and catches a bus home. 7pm: Clare leaves home and returns to the mall. 9.15-10pm: Clare goes to Eastern Beach with friends and is seen playing near the fountain and pool. She then goes with a group to a friend’s house in Garden St, East Geelong. She leaves the house and is believed to walk into the city. 10.30pm: Clare is seen walking along Bellerine St where she is believed to be drunk and escorted to McDonald’s, in Moorabool St. She leaves McDonald’s and is seen again in the mall. 10.57pm: She is seen by a police officer in Union St, Geelong. Midnight: Clare is seen walking down the mall towards Moorabool St. 12.10am: There is a possible sighting of Clare walking in a northerly direction along La Trobe Tce. 12.20am: Another possible sighting of her hitchhiking in Ryrie St, about 100m east of Garden St. 7.25am: Clare’s body is found washed up at Bells Beach, near Jan Juc when Norlane’s Shane McLaren provided false information that he had seen the missing girl in a blue Holden Commodore on the night of her disappearance — a claim that would later see him jailed for three months.
Now aged 36, Andrew says he’s never been more desperate for closure.
“As a kid, I used to walk down through the shops in town and see the wanted posters. There’s days when it’s all I can think about,” he says.
“Those who know something, they’re all grown up now. They’re adults who probably have families of their own so I plead with them to look into the faces of their own children and imagine how they’d feel waiting 25 years for answers.
“There are people out there who can close this case, they just need to stand up and do the right thing.”
A $50,000 reward remains for information on Clare Morrison’s death. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.