MISSING SYDNEY New Idea CRIME TEENAGER special
A NEW ABC INVESTIGATION LOOKS INTO THE DISAPPEARANCE OF TRUDIE ADAMS
What happened to Trudie Adams? It’s a 40-year-old question that’s never been answered.
Shortly after midnight on June 25, 1978, the 18-year-old left a dance at Newport Surf Club on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Her ex-boyfriend Steven Norris watched her get into a car on Barrenjoey Road. She was never seen again.
Trudie’s disappearance – and likely murder – is the subject of an investigation for the threepart ABC documentary series, Barrenjoey Road and an accompanying true crime podcast Unravel: Barrenjoey Road.
What investigative journalists Ruby Jones and former Today Tonight host Neil Mercer uncover is an area rife with sexual assaults at the time.
Months after Trudie was reported missing, 14 women told police they had been abducted and sexually assaulted in the Mona Vale area. The women had been blindfolded and handcuffed and taken to nearby bushland, where they were raped.
“It became clear Trudie wasn’t the only victim,” Ruby tells New Idea. “There were a lot of women who had been attacked in the area at the same time.”
Trudie’s family and friends were left shattered by her disappearance. She had asked her mother, Connie, to wait up for her after the dance. When Trudie didn’t come home it was Connie who had reported her daughter missing.
“Connie died 11 years after Trudie disappeared and, by all accounts, she never got over not knowing what happened to her daughter,” Ruby says. “She wanted to put Trudie to rest, to bury her, but it was something she never got to do.”
At the time she went missing, Trudie’s life was brimming with possibilities. She was training to be a secretary and she wanted to see the world. In August, she was planning to take a trip to Bali with friends. It was a trip that wasn’t to be.
One of the more interesting theories around Trudie’s disappearance was that the teenager had fallen in with people who were running drugs between Bali and Sydney. It was thought Trudie might have been bumped off in a drug import deal gone wrong.
“There was a dark side to the Northern Beaches at the time,” Ruby acknowledges. “There was a drug trade going on where people were bringing drugs back through Bali.”
Police have investigated Trudie’s case on several occasions, but have come up empty. Ruby says she and Neil have information “that hasn’t been made public before”.
“We had a breakthrough when we were given all the original police documents from 1978 onwards,” she says. “That
enabled us to look at everything the police did in 1978, and the subsequent investigations, and also what wasn’t done.
“When these 14 other women came forward to report awful crimes, why wasn’t more done? None of these cases were prosecuted.”
Early on in the original police investigation, one of the suspects in these rape cases was career criminal Neville Tween. Some of the women even picked him out of a line-up. But he wasn’t questioned about Trudie or any of the sexual assaults.
Tween, however, did appear at the 2011 inquest, and the ABC has a voice recording of him giving evidence. The ABC has been given permission by the Attorney General’s office to broadcast this.
Until recently, Tween was in prison serving 18 years on drugs charges. However, he has now passed away.
“Neville had a distinctive voice,” Ruby says. “He had a speech impediment and some of the women who came forward to say they’d been assaulted mentioned a man having a speech impediment.
“We’re hoping that by broadcasting his voice, anyone who recognises it could come forward with new information,” Ruby explains. Also in Barrenjoey Road, Trudie’s ex, Steve, who himself was once a suspect, is interviewed. Steve told police he saw Trudie leave in a beige panel van. “At one point, police performed hypnosis on Steve to get more information,” Ruby says. “They were going hard on him and you could see why.” But, Ruby adds, it’s clear Steve still cares for Trudie. “He still has a sarong that she had worn back when they were dating,” she says. “He’s never forgotten Trudie.” Neither has the rest of Australia.
It’s a Hollywood tragedy – and one of the world’s most enduring mysteries. In 1981, movie star Natalie Wood mysteriously drowned after she went missing from a boat near Santa Catalina Island, about 35km off the coast of California.
So, what happened all those years ago? A new Discovery Channel special investigation, Natalie Wood: An American Murder Mystery delves into the star’s death.
Back in 1981, Natalie’s death – at 43 – was ruled an accidental drowning. But in 2012, the Los Angeles coroner amended the Oscar-nominated actress’ death certificate to “drowning and other undetermined factors”.
The truth is, ever since Natalie’s death, there has been speculation about foul play. Her husband Robert Wagner, who was with her the night she died, has maintained his innocence.
However, earlier this year, almost four decades after Natalie’s demise, investigators named Robert “a person of interest”. “This is a case that’s almost 40 years old, but I don’t think the interest has ever really waned with this story,” executive producer Pamela Deutsch says.
“There have always been a lot of theories and whispers about what occurred on the boat that night. “And when Robert Wagner was named a ‘person of interest’ it really sparked interest in the case.”
It was Thanksgiving weekend 1981 and actor Christopher Walken, who was filming Brainstorm with Natalie, had joined her and Robert aboard Wagner’s yacht, Splendour, which was moored off Santa Catalina Island. The trio had been drinking heavily on the night of Nov. 29 at a restaurant on the island. It was about 1.30am on Nov. 30 when Robert’s voice suddenly came across the ship-to-shore radio: “This is Splendour. We need help. Someone is missing from the boat.”
Harbourmaster Doug Odin was notified and quickly realised the boat’s dinghy was missing. “I asked Robert, ‘Did she (Natalie) have any friends? Did she know how to run the boat?’” Doug says in the documentary.
By 3.30am, the coastguard had been alerted of Natalie’s disappearance and Doug had organised a search party. Panic was beginning to set in.
Around 5am, Doug saw something red in the water. Tragically, it was Natalie lying face down in the same red jacket she’d been wearing on Saturday evening.
Born to Russian migrants, Natalie had a fairytale rise to fame. Aged 8, she starred in the 1947 classic, Miracle on 34th Street. As a teenager, she earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in 1955’s Rebel Without A Cause.
In 1956, a date was arranged between Natalie, then 18, and Robert, who was 26. “It clicked from that first night,” Natalie’s sister, Lana Wood says of the pairing. “He was charming and based his career on that.”
Adds Hollywood historian Laurie Jacobson: “They were the Brad [Pitt] and Jen [Aniston] of their time.”
Natalie and Robert later divorced and remarried other people, but then came back to each other and remarried. “Sometimes it’s a case of the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t,” Lana says Natalie told her at the time.
But their marriage was reportedly plagued with jealousy. After Natalie’s death, it was revealed Robert and Christopher had argued on the night she died. There was also speculation Natalie – who was found with bruising on her body – and Robert had fought.
Last month, Los Angeles detective Ralph Hernandez told the podcast, Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death Of Natalie Wood investigators were keen to talk to Robert, now 88. “We would love to have an interview with Robert Wagner, and for him to tell us the truth in that interview,” Ralph said. A heartbroken Lana has made her position clear. She told the podcast, “I think that RJ [Robert] murdered her”.
One thing is certain. The mystery of Natalie’s death remains as perplexing as ever.