Five women & girl, 14, murdered within miles of each other with the same chilling clue…why was killer never found?
WHEN five women and a 14-year-old girl were snatched and killed within miles of each other, each murder had the same chilling clue.
Alison Rooke, 59, Bertha Miller, 73, Catherine Headland, 14, Ann-Marie Sargent, 18, Narumol Stephenson, 34, and Joy Carmel Summers, 55, were all killed within an 18-month period.
All six women were walking, or on their way to use public transport, when they were taken and murdered.
The victims – aged 14 to 73 – were killed and dumped in scrubland in Frankston and Tynong North, Melbourne, between May 1980 and November 1981.
Extreme efforts were made to hide their location and their identity – with the killer taking away all their possessions before leaving their bodies to rot.
Corpses of the older women were found clothed – while the younger victims were found partially naked.
Their bodies were found severely decomposed – leaving detectives unable to determine the cause of their deaths.
At the time, DNA evidence was not available – and it was nine years after the first murder that it became widely used in courts.
Since the 1980s, Victoria Police have interviewed more than 2,000 people about the killings, coming up just with a handful of suspects.
A special task force was created for the case in 1998 to solve the case.
And despite exhaustive efforts, nobody has ever been charged.
Now, we revisit one of Australia‘s most shocking unsolved cases which horrified the nation – and how no one has ever been charged.
Decades on, Detective Inspector Mick Hughes said they are still “keen to see this investigation resolved”.
He said: “We want that vital piece of information that will progress this case.
“Families [of the victims] are frustrated, and some very hard-working investigators have been frustrated by not being able to progress this over the years.
“There are a lot of [loose ends] in this case, a lot of little things that we think ‘if I just knew a bit more about that’, it might help us.”
A police spokesman confirmed the investigation “remains active” – and a total of $6million (£3m) in rewards is still up for grabs.
They said: “Investigators will not provide comment on details of anyone spoken to as part of the ongoing investigation.
“A reward of up to $1million per case remains in place and will be paid… for information leading to the apprehension and subsequent conviction of the person or persons responsible for the deaths of the six victims.”
We’ve had to move on, and it’s a lot of time, but still we would love to see some finalisation
Keith Rooke
Allison Rooke’s son Keith Rooke said the family are still desperate for answers.
He told ABC News: “We’ve had to move on, and it’s a lot of time, but still we would love to see some finalisation.
“It would also make sure that our mum is not remembered just for what happened, but remembered for the great person that she was.
“It would mean a lot.”
Joy Summer‘s niece, Catherine Warnock, found out about the death of her aunt Joy Summer on a TV news broadcast.
She said: “It was so awful. This was the sort of thing that happened to other people, in other places, not to our family and not in Melbourne.”
Peter Sargent described her 18-year-old sister Ann-Marie as bubbly “who was loved by everyone” – and said her death “wreaked havoc” on her family.
Tynong North and Frankston murders
FIVE women and a 14-year-old girl were taken, murdered and dumped between May 1980 and October 1981:
Allison Rooke, 60, was the first known victim of the Frankston and Tynong murders and was last seen in May 1980.
Joy Summers, 55, was last seen on October 9, 1981, waiting at a bus stop. She was found dead in November 1981.
Bertha Miller, 73, the aunt of former police chief Mick Miller, was snatched at random on August 10, 1980
Catherine Headland, 14, was last seen on October 9, 1980. She was heading towards the bus stop on Manuka Road and High Street before she vanished.
Ann-Marie Sargent, 18, disappeared in October 1980 while trying to catch a bus. Her skeletal remains were found alongside Catherine and Bertha.
Narumol Stephenson, 34, vanished after her husband left her inside a car in November 1980. Her bones were found alongside the other victims a few weeks later.
While the killer has never been found, cops have probed several leads – including whether the same person killed all six victims.
One of the suspects was Raymond Edmunds – a convicted rapist and serial killer from Victoria known to have committed a string of violent crimes and sexual assaults between the 1960s and 1980s.
Edmunds was once believed to be the killer of the Tynong North and Frankston murders – but cops eventually ruled him out after credible alibis suggested he was living in New South Wales at the time of the murders.
Another suspect was Bandali Debs who murdered two police officers and two sex workers in the mid-1990s and is currently serving life in prison.
Cops initially believed he was behind the string of murders due to his pattern of grim violence and his proximity to Princes’ Highway.
I have never hated a person or disliked them enough to wish them dead and take their life
Harold Janman
A third suspect was Harold Janman – who was known to give lifts to strangers in the area the murder victims were snatched from.
Unlike the other suspects, Janman never had a criminal record but he had close ties to Frankston, living in the area for over a decade.
He told cops during interrogation that he was visiting a local bank on the day Joy Summers disappeared – and his wife supported his alibi.
But when authorities spoke to the bank staff, they found no records of Janman visiting that day.
He worked in the area at the Tynong Hotel and at the quarry where the Tynong North murderer would dispose of their victims.
Throughout the years, Janman maintained his innocence and insisted he had nothing to do with the murders.
Cops failed to gather any more evidence on him and were not able to charge him for the brutal killings.
In 2018, he told A Current Affair: “I couldn’t kill an animal, let alone a person.
“I have never hated a person or disliked them enough to wish them dead and take their life.”
It changed us all because we thought we were safe. I wouldn’t let my girls go out. I wouldn’t let them go on the bus
Cheryl Goldsworthy
Janman died in 2020.
All the victims disappeared in broad daylight on busy roads – either walking or waiting for public transport.
On May 30, 1980, 60-year-old widow Allison Rooke disappeared from the Frankston area.
She lived in a flat on Hannah Street, Frankston North – and her neighbour told cops she was headed to pay bills and buy groceries when she disappeared.
Ms Rooke usually drove, but on that day car troubles forced her to take public transport.
The usual bus driver didn’t remember picking her up – and she never made it to the grocery store.
In July 1980 – five weeks after her disappearance – a man walking his dogs found her body partially hidden by scrubland, on McClelland Drive in Frankston.
Just three months later, Bertha Miller, 75, vanished as she headed to church.
She lived in Glen Iris with her brother-in-law and she was an active member of the Spring Wesleyan Street Mission in Prahran – a church she had attended for 48 years.
On August 10, 1980, Bertha left for the Sunday church service and caught the same tram she did every week – planning to meet a friend on the way.
But her friend never met her on the tram. It is believed she was taken from the tram stop.
Just days after Bertha was taken, 14-year-old schoolgirl Catherine Headland vanished on August 28, 1980.
She was one when she moved to Australia with her family – and lived in Berwick.
Catherine worked part-time on weekends at a Coles supermarket in a nearby shopping centre.
On August 28, Catherine went to meet her boyfriend John Mcmanus – who lived just a mile away from her place – before starting her shift.
After watching TV and listening to her favourite music records, Catherine left for work at around 11.10am and walked towards the High Street to catch a bus at 11.20am.
But she never made it to the bus stop.
I don’t believe the killer could be quiet and not tell anyone
Cheryl Goldsworthy
Her body was found four months later in December in the same area as the body of Bertha Miller.
Cheryl Goldsworthy, a close friend of Catherine, said she never let her daughters take the bus after the murders.
She added: “It changed us all because we thought we were safe. I wouldn’t let my girls go out. I wouldn’t let them go on the bus.
“It was broad daylight. It shouldn’t have happened.”
She told 9 News: “I don’t believe the killer could be quiet and not tell anyone.
“I hope that his time is coming and it’s coming soon and he should be behind bars. Someone’s coming for him, someone’s got to say something.”
On October 6, 1980, 18-year-old Ann-Marie Sargent also disappeared.
She was last seen at an unemployment office in Dandenong.
Cops reportedly found she was a frequent hitchhiker and they believe she got a lift from an unknown person – thought to be the killer – on the day she went missing.
On December 6, a group of men who were dumping animal remains in scrub near a quarry in Tynong North came across human remains in the area.
Cops were called and the bodies of Bertha, Catherine and Ann-Marie were located at the site.
Just days before the three bodies were found, Narumol Stephenson, 34, vanished outside a friend’s house.
Narumol – a Thai national who only moved to Australia a year before – was last seen on November 29, 1980.
After a disagreement with her husband about visiting friends late at night, Narumol stayed in the car while the others went inside.
When her husband came outside to check on her, the car was found empty and Narumol had disappeared.
She was found in February 1983 after a man spotted a bone sticking out of a bush as he pulled over to fix a flat tyre on the Princes Freeway in Tynong North.
Then, a year later, Joy Summers – a 55-year-old widow – vanished, and her disappearance and murder was linked to the other five victims.
Joy was heading on a shopping trip to Frankston on October 9, 1981, when she vanished.
Joy had suffered a stroke a couple of years before – and was always accompanied by someone, except on this day.
She was last seen sitting at a bus stop just minutes away from her home at 1.20pm.
It is believed someone snatched her from the bus stop – as no bus drivers on the route remember picking her up.
On November 22, 1981, a man collecting firewood found Joy’s naked body hidden in bushland in Frankston North.
Her body was found just two miles away from where Allison Rooke’s remains were found.
Australian cops believe all six murders are linked as all the bodies had been left in scrubland – and similar efforts were made by the killer to conceal their location and their identity.