HOW COULD TWO GIRLS DISAPPEAR WITHOUT A TRACE?
Family and friends still don’t know whether childhood friends Elaine and Kerry are dead or alive – four decades later
Teenagers Elaine Johnson and Kerry Joel vanished from a caravan park in Sydney’s south in February 1980, leaving their heartbroken families desperate for answers, and wondering if a series of police bungles are to blame for denying them closure.
“We’re at a standstill. I don’t believe myself that they left the Shire. There’s nothing to prove they went anywhere else,” says Helen Cooper, who was just 12 when her blonde-haired, blueeyed sister Elaine went missing.
Dismissed as teenage runaways, by the time police began investigations into the case the trail had gone cold.
With little information filed by police, and apparently lost, it’s been an uphill battle in the search for answers, with Elaine only placed on a missing persons poster in 2018, 38 years after she disappeared.
HIPPIE CHILD
Remembering her sister as a “carefree hippie child” who loved floral pants and skateboarding, Helen hasn’t given up trying to find answers and regularly attends markets with a missing persons display stall in hope of finding more information.
“We are striving to get in contact with any residents or visitors of the caravan park at that time,” says Helen, who has also set up a Facebook page, Help Find Elaine Johnson Missing Persons, to try and learn her sister’s fate.
“If anyone saw the girls at the Woronora Caravan Park back then or spoke to them about where they were going, please come forward.”
Former Cronulla High School student Elaine, 16, left her home in Kurnell, NSW, after an argument with her father about attending a party and was last seen with Kerry, 17, a neighbourhood friend.
Kerry’s mother Judy Rose says her daughter was a vibrant, cheeky and confident teenager.
“She had a lot of friends and what scares me is that no one has been in contact with her,” she says, noting the day her daughter went missing she returned home to find her car damaged.
“Kerry must have taken it while I was at work. She never came home. Every time I see someone dug up in the bush on the news, I wonder if it’s Kerry... the only way to cope is to put it out of your mind,” says Judy.
‘If anyone saw the girls please come forward’
Over the last four decades there have been claims the girls may have been taken by notorious backpacker murderer Ivan Milat, who was actively hunting during that time, while there have been unsubstantiated reported sightings of the girls up to three years after their disappearance, including one at Kings Cross in Sydney.
If you have any information relating to missing girls Elaine and Kerry please call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000