Shocking unsolved cases exposes grim underbelly
These are the crimes that are yet to see justice done. Can you help police?
THEY are the crimes that have rocked Toowoomba from murder to brazen break and enters, organised rape and serious assaults.
They are unsolved. They are concerning. Some are pure heinous.
The Toowoomba community is among the most prolific for working with the region’s police and detectives forces but despite repeated appeals for information and dogged investigations, those responsible for these crimes are yet to be caught.
And brought before the courts.
Here, The Chronicle looks back at the cases which remain unsolved.
SAM ROBERT PRICE-PURCELL
LEONIE Price’s voice didn’t shake, at first, when she stood beside the head of the Homicide Group and made a public appeal to find her son.
Her boy, Sam Robert PricePurcell, had gone missing three years ago, and Mrs Pric- e’s plea for information marked three heart-breaking years since that day.
“Our lives have been permanently impacted by what’s happened to Sam,” she said.
It was at that press conference Homicide Group Detective Inspector Damien Hansen revealed a group of Toowoomba criminals may have been involved in Sam’s suspected murder.
His body has never been found but less than a month later, and acting on information from the public, detectives raided a Leyburn property, uncovering a buried drug lab, drug paraphernalia and firearms.
The large-scale police operation failed to find Sam’s remains, or lead to any immediate charges.
“We have particular interest in a 2010 SS Commodore that he was last seen getting into, and we appeal to the public anybody - who can put San in that car to please come forward,” Detective Senior Sergeant Christopher Knight said at the scene.
The investigation is ongoing.
ORGANISED RAPE
PETA Butler has gotten a glimpse at justice but the man who she was raped by, organised by her mother, remains at large.
Ms Butler was just 16 when one of the most evil of betrayals played out in a downmarket Toowoomba hotel room.
Plied with alcohol given to her by her mother - who organised the depraved act - Peta was raped by a man she remembers as being balding and fat.
Her mother, Therese Butler, was this year sentenced to jail for the horrific crime in 2006 but even after the court closed the book on that aspect, police fear the depraved man preyed on other young girls.
Police are hunting Peta’s rapist, a man believed to be known as Peter “Thommo” Thompson who spoke with Therese online for about two years before convincing her to bring her daughter to Toowoomba for the assault.
“She set it up and she murdered me on that day, she might as well have,” Peta, who has worked with police to compile a comfit image of the man, said earlier this year.
“He was extremely obese. But those eyes. He was about, maybe 175cm. Once you see them, you can’t get past them.”
ANNETTE JANE MASON
IT IS one of the most enduring murder mysteries that changed Toowoomba.
In 1989, young teenager Annette Jane Mason was found bludgeoned to death and partly covered by a doona in the sunroom of a Newtown home.
For years her family, and a dogged team of investigators, have reviewed the case, and a $250,000 reward remains on offer for information that leads to the prosecution of those responsible.
The Mason family has never languished in their commitment to see justice done, and it has danced before them on
several occasions.
It was their relentless fight for Justice for Annette that saw the Attorney-General order a new coronial inquest into the brutal death.
It is now hoped a new hearing before the Coroner’s Court this year will identify the young teenager’s killer, and see justice done.
PENSIONER TARGETED IN BREAK-IN
IT’S a far-too common crime in Toowoomba and one that leaves its victims feeling powerless and unsafe in their own home.
They feel violated in the place that should always be safe because it is their castle.
And that’s exactly what Jean White’s home is to her, and even at 96, she will not be forced to leave.
The independent widower and pensioner became the resilient face of the property crime spike across Toowoomba when she fell victim to the brazen break and enter of her Harristown home earlier this month.
The burglars cut their way through a screen window standing on top of wheelie bins moved to the house, her cupboards were rifled through, possessions left scattered across the floor and irreplaceable jewellery stolen.
The thieves have a near-zero chance of re-selling the sentimental gold sovereign stolen, but it is yet to be recovered.
DRAYTON ROBBERY WITH VIOLENCE
MORE than three months after a Drayton woman woke to a man inside her home, Toowoomba police released a comfit image of a man they are yet to question.
It was an unusual step for police but an indication of the seriousness of the offence which occurred about 2.30am on Stenner St, Drayton, on October 2 last year.
The woman woke to a noise coming from inside her home and when she went downstairs, was confronted by a man who assaulted her.
He tried, and failed, to steal her car keys, and fled the home on foot.
On January 24 this year, police went public with an appeal to identify the man.
He is yet to be located, and the crime remains unsolved.
TARMARA JUNE SMITH MURDER
THE tree to which Tarmara June Smith’s badly beaten and partly naked body was tied to on March 31, 2002, became a macabre attraction it had to be removed.
The 24-year-old had been strangled, her left wrist slit and her brutally sexually assaulted body left on Isabel St on the outskirts of the Toowoomba CBD.
Toowoomba’s worst unsolved crimes: Tamara Smith: The 2002 Easter Sunday murder of Tamara June Smith sent shock waves across Toowoomba.
The police of the day took the extraordinary step of installing a mannequin on Clifford St wearing similar clothes Ms Smith was seen wearing when she left the Shamrock Hotel - a black knee-length dress, black jacket, black shoes and carrying a brown handbag.
A man - Ms Smith’s former partner - was charged and acquitted over the horrific murder, and police are no longer investigating the case for that reason.
But there are people who believe police originally caught the wrong man, and the sordid saga took various turns over the decades.
The brutal murder remains unsolved.
BARBARA TROUGHTON’S DISAPPEARANCE
TWO years ago, Barbara Troughton left a note in her Newtown home and walked out on her Toowoomba life.
Leaving behind a hand written note on the bench inside the home she shared with her husband, the then-62-yearold vanished.
That was Wednesday, January 27, 2016.
Police do not suspect foul play, instead believing the former supermarket owner and keen traveller has simply disappeared.
Ms Troughton remains on the long-term missing persons list, along with hundreds of others, but the case remains unsolved.
“She loves the ocean and rainforest and Woodford Folk Festival,” Ms Troughton’s husband Ray McCaul told The Chronicle in February 2016.
You can remain anonymous. Report any information to Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or Policelink on 131 444 or go to your nearest police station.