Place to ‘grieve and remember’ Lucille

HOBART’S Lucille Butterworth, taken from loved ones in a savage crime 48 years ago, finally has a resting place. It’s a special place. Nestled in the corner of a Claremont park, it juxtaposes the love that brought her into this world with the cruelty that took her away.

Metres from where older brother Jim Butterworth yesterday unveiled her memorial is the rose garden where her parents’ ashes were scattered years ago.

Across the road from the plaque is the bus stop where the 20-year-old vanishednished on August 25, 1969.

Her remains have never been discov-overed but last yearar Coroner Simonn Cooper found she was picked up and killed by Geoffrey Charles Hunt.

Prosecutors declined to press charges, citing a lack of admissiblele evidence againstnst Hunt who denied any involvement.

It’s been a tortuousortuous 48 years for the Butterworth family. Lucille’s parents Winifred and Bruce died never having the answers to questions that haunted them to their graves.

Police initially mishandled the case so badly that nobody has ever been charged, let alone brought to justice for the sickensickening crime. But MMr Butterworthworth told a gathering of family and friends that there was now at least a place where Lucille could be mourned.

“We needed somewhere, we’ve never known all these years where and what happened and we do now have somewhere to remember her life,” he said.

“It’s somewhere we can come and grieve and remember. Not that we forget. I’ll never ever forget her, I love my little sister.”

Mr Butterworth, who has spent a lifetime crusading for justice for his “best friend”, said the memorial was also a marker of the “evil out there”.

“It’s also a warning that there’s evil out there for other young people ... they should keep a little bit of care because nobody thought for a minute that anything like this would happen to Lucille, not for a minute,” he said.

Lucille was described as a “vibrant, happy, beautiful” girl, a part-time model who worked at a local television station.

On the night she was taken, she was on her way to meet fiance John Fitzgerald at fundraiser at New Norfolk.

But a missed bus saw her accept a lift, according to the coroner, with Hunt — a man who would go on to murder Hobart car saleswoman Susan Knight.

Coroner Cooper found Hunt killed Lucille shortly after and dumped her body on the banks of the Derwent. a