Ten years, no answers
Missing mother of two Novy Chardon’s body may never be found
NOVY Chardon is dead and the location of her body went to the grave with her former husband John. Chardon, a convicted rapist, child-sex offender and killer, died of a heart attack in prison in October 2020, just a year after he was convicted of his wife’s manslaughter.
The 73-year-old was serving a 15-year sentence.
This weekend marks 10 years since Mrs Chardon disappeared without a trace from her Upper Coomera home in February 2013.
The 34-year-old’s divorce lawyers had sent her estranged husband a letter the same day.
The mother of two’s car was found abandoned in Nerang but as police ramped up their search, Chardon and his two youngest children departed the country for Indonesia on a pre-arranged business trip.
Briefly speaking to the media before his departure, he claimed his Indonesian-born wife had disappeared before.
‘‘I am in a meeting at the moment,’’ he told the Bulletin on February 11, 2013.
‘‘I am very, very upset about everything and don’t want to talk about it.’’
Earlier, he told a television reporter he and his wife were divorcing but she should ‘‘get her stupid bloody arse home’’.
‘‘She’s done this sort of thing before, just not for such a long time,’’ he said
The search for Mrs Chardon continued for years, with police working on the belief she had been murdered and her body dumped.
In March 2014 police dug up the back yard of a Hinterland property looking for a vehicle buried deep within its yard but no body was found within its frame.
Other properties were searched but no new evidence was located. Chardon was finally charged with his wife’s murder in June 2016 and was convicted of her slaying in September 2019.
In her sentencing remarks, Justice Ann Lyons said it was clear Mrs Chardon had died a violent death.
“We will never know what happened to Novy that night. You do – you’ve never confessed,” she said.
“We don’t know what happened to her body. You do – you’ve never revealed (its) location.
“You will have to live with the knowledge you killed the mother of your young children. Your two children now know what you did. They will have to live their lives knowing … that you killed her, discarded her and deceived them for more than six years through a web of lies.
“You showed no respect for her in the final hours of her life. Over the last six years you showed no scintilla of remorse.”