Devoted mum was on cusp of new life

NOVY Chardon’s disappearance on February 6, 2013, sparked one of Queensland’s biggest suspected murder mysteries.

Three years later, after a lengthy investigation, her estranged husband John Chardon, 31 years her senior, was charged with her murder.

The body of the 34-yearold Upper Coomera mother has never been found.

A devoted newly single mother with a mystery lover and a new beauty business, Mrs Chardon was beginning a new life when she mysteriously disappeared.

Mother of daughter Channelle, 9, and son Alex, 7, Mrs Chardon was last seen alive in footage captured at a Coomera service station about 9pm on February 6, 2013.

The beauty therapist, who listed her status on Facebook as ‘single’, had been negotiating a difficult divorce in the months leading up to her disappearance.

However, there were no signs of ending business, no notes left giving clues that she had lost her humour and friends had no underlying fears of her failing to begin a new life.

Mrs Chardon wrote her last post on Facebook on February 3.

Two days after his estranged wife was last seen alive on February 6, her husband, Loganholme INOX lubricant creator and millionaire John Chardon, took the couple’s young children to Indonesia.

A missing-person report was issued for Mrs Chardon on February 10, 2013, and police found her car at Nerang train station the next day.

In the following weeks police divers searched the Nerang River for clues, combed Bowden Ct at Nerang, near where her car was found and bushland near the Chardons’ Upper Coomera home.

Mr Chardon’s industrial lubricant business and bushland near Kopps Rd at Oxenford were also searched.

Mr Chardon was interviewed when he returned from Indonesia on February 25, 2013, before being released without charge.

Detectives who believed a third party was involved in Mrs Chardon’s disappearance were determined to ensure it would not become a cold case.

On March 4 2014, police dug up a Mt Nathan property before finding part of a white ute — the same vehicle seen near Novy’s abandoned car at Nerang — two days later.

Police issued a $250,000 reward for any information which could lead to charges against Novy’s killer on March 13, 2014.

On January 28, 2015, police searched an Advancetown property but no items of interest were found.

More than a year later, on June 17, 2016, John William Chardon was arrested over his wife’s murder.