WITHOUT A TRACE
What was meant to be an adventure, ended in one of Australia’s biggest ever mysteries
It was 29 July 1999, when Hayley Dodd left her home carrying a small pocketknife, a map, and some coins. Hayley, 17, had set off to visit her friend at a family farmhouse, and she was planning to hitchhike her way there.
The town she was heading to, Moora, was about 200 km away from where she was in Dongara, a small fishing town 350km northwest of Perth.
She had been working as a labourer and living in a caravan park with her best friend, Lisa, as the pair made plans to travel around Australia on a year-long working holiday.
Hayley was extremely excited to leave on her journey and had given Lisa a cuddle and promised she’d see her when she returned.
At just 152cm tall, she was petite and looked younger than her age.
Lisa had offered her a pocketknife on the off-chance that if anything went wrong, she’d have the chance to defend herself.
Sadly, that wouldn’t be enough to protect her.
On her travels, Hayley disappeared without a trace.
Her mother, Margaret Dodd, knew something was wrong when Hayley never arrived at her friend’s.
She was a very talented and loving girl, receiving great grades at school, and dreaming of becoming a primary school teacher or vet when she graduated.
It wasn’t like her to just vanish. Hayley had set off on her journey at around 8am. Her first lift had dropped her off at a gas station at around 10.30am, where she made a call from a phone box.
The truck driver that dropped her at the station in Badgingarra, a town on the way to Moora, said she seemed very ‘happy and bubbly’.
She then accepted another lift from a lady.
The last known sighting of Hayley was at around 11.40am.
A motorist said they’d seen her walking along the road in the general direction of the farm where she was meant to be heading. But she never arrived.
The police were contacted when everyone realised that she was missing, and a 10-person police task force was launched, joined by a group of volunteers.
Back home, Lisa began putting together a sketch of what Hayley had been wearing when she had left, including some brand-new Egyptian ankh shaped earrings.
After two long months, there was still no leads and the case slowly stalled.
Margaret and the rest of Hayley’s family refused to be brushed aside and continued to keep the case in the public eye.
In the years that followed, there was over 130 ‘persons of interest’ identified, but there was never enough evidence to incriminate anyone.
Finally, in 2013, a Coroner’s office decided to conduct an inquest, prompting a cold case review of the police investigation and a re-examination the evidence.
That included looking again at a car seat cover, which was seized in 1999 from the vehicle of a previous suspect, Francis ‘Frank’ Wark.
It was re-examined in September 2013, where they came across a small earring lodged in the fibres, matching Lisa’s drawing.
This key evidence had been missed for over 14 years.
Wark, now at the centre of the renewed police investigation, was already in jail serving a 12-year term for the violent sexual assault of a woman he had picked up on a remote road.
Detectives flew over to Townsville, Queensland, to interview him, but he told them they were wasting their time and denied involvement.
Despite his claims, he was still charged with Hayley’s murder and extradited to Perth, Western Australia.
At the centre of the prosecution case in his first 2017 Supreme Court trial was the earring and a single strand of hair found in his vehicle.
The evidence was subjected to new, advanced DNA testing and it was alleged there were traces of Hayley’s DNA.
Prosecutors also claimed that the previous sex offences Wark had committed showed that he could pick up lone women in remote areas and violently attack them.
He showed no emotion when the judge, Justice Lindy Jenkin, sentenced him to life with a minimum of 21 years in 2018, and slammed him for not saying where Hayley’s body was.
However, just two years later, Wark’s conviction was thrown out on appeal after it was ruled the judge had made an error discounting Wark’s alibis.
Before a jury at a retrial, Wark maintained his innocence, claiming that police could have tampered with evidence.
A jury acquitted Wark of murder, but found him guilty of manslaughter instead.
Justice Stephen Hall sentenced Wark to 18 years with a minimum of 16 years, describing his crimes as the worst type of manslaughter the state had seen.
The judge concluded that Wark had intended to sexually assault Hayley, but it ended in a violent assault.
To this day, Wark refuses to reveal where Hayley’s body is.
In March 2018, after campaigns from Margaret Dodd, the ‘no body, no parole,’ laws were passed by WA Parliament.
That means Wark will not be granted parole until he tells the family where Hayley’s body is.
After all these years, Margaret still prays that one day they will get answers, and be able to bring her beautiful daughter home.
A small earring was found in his car