Cold case: Police offer $1m reward for information on Rhianna Barreau’s disappearance on October 7, 1992
NEARLY 23 years ago, Rhianna Barreau disappeared without a trace. Today, her parents break their silence in a desperate plea for answers with the police offering a $1 million reward for information.
Paula Barreau has a terrible, painful fear. It is shared by her former husband, Leon.
The parents of abducted schoolgirl Rhianna Barreau both fear they will not find out what happened to their daughter or where she now is, before they die.
READ BELOW: Immunity, $1m reward to solve mystery
Although they both accept that Rhianna, 12, is dead after being kidnapped from near her Morphett Vale home almost 23 years ago, they are still looking for answers to the many, many questions they still agonise over almost every day.
They include who snatched Rhianna, why she was taken, why there were no witnesses, clues or definitive leads for police to follow.
But, most of all, they want to know where her remains are before they die.
The abduction and presumed murder of Rhianna Barreau remains one of South Australia’s most enduring mysteries. Despite thousands of hours of Major Crime investigations and the posting of a $1 million reward for information on the case it remains unsolved. While detectives have several persons of interest they believe have information concerning Rhianna’s disappearance, there is no definitive suspect.
In an emotional interview Ms Barreau, 65, and Mr Barreau, 62, speaking publicly for the first time since the abduction have recalled the vivid memories they still have of the day their daughter simply vanished. Even though almost 23 years have passed, Ms Barreau’s memories of October 7, 1992, are clear — and just as distressing.
“It is still there. I can still see myself walking into her room before I left for work,’’ she said.
“She was listening to music and told me: ‘shoosh mum, I’m listening to this.’ The song was The B-52’s hit Loveshack, one of Rhianna’s favourites.”
Before going to work Paula had talked with Rhianna about her plan to go to the local shopping centre to buy a card for an American penfriend. Ironically, there was a bus strike that day, so she was going to walk.
Her last words to her daughter were nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual daily farewell before she left for work at the Education Department.
After Ms Barreau left it appears Rhianna remained at home until mid-morning. There was a positive sighting of her at 10.30am walking towards a Reynella newsagency. The last sighting was at 12.30pm on Highway Drive, between the Morphett Vale High School and the Stanvac Primary School. While Rhianna returned home after that sighting — the card she purchased was on a dining room table — precisely what time and what then occurred after that remains a mystery.
Ms Barreau can remember the instant she walked into the house late that afternoon when she arrived home. It was 4.10pm.
The television was still on and a record was on the floor. The card Rhianna had bought was still in its wrapper on the table.
She looked for Rhianna inside and outside, but there was no sign. She doorknocked neighbours — one a police officer several doors down. No-one had seen her. By 6pm the alarm bells were ringing. Rhianna was nowhere to be seen — or found.
Ms Barreau knew Rhianna wasn’t at any of her friends’ houses and she hadn’t run away. She suspected the worst.
“I was hoping she was just at a friend’s place and had forgotten what the time was but that’s not like her,” she said.
She said the following days and weeks, when the shocking, blunt reality of the situation confronted her, were characterised by a feeling of “numbness” and not being able to comprehend “why did this happen”.
She recalls thoughts racing through her mind including where was Rhianna, was she still alive and just who had done this. Many different scenarios were racing through her mind during sleepless nights.
At the same time she was trying to answer dozens of questions being fired at her by major crime detectives about many, many people who may have had interaction with Rhianna prior to her disappearance.
In the early months — that soon grew into years — Ms Barreau clung to the hope Rhianna would return home to her Wakefield Ave home.
“That’s why I never moved,” she said.
“But then it got to the stage I just couldn’t stand living there and had to move away.”
And even when she did move, after waiting for son Shannon — Rhianna’s older brother — to finish school, she still felt guilty about doing so.
When she did finally make the break, it would take even longer before she could venture back to Morphett Vale.
“It must have been nine or 10 years, I suppose, before I went back down that way.”
She concedes it was a combination of fear and terrible memories that kept her from the area.
While she has now accepted Rhianna isn’t coming home, it took her “a couple of years’’ to come to terms with that reality and accept the situation. “But I still don’t understand it,’’ she said. “I accept that she is not coming back but I don’t accept what’s happened.”
Although it has been almost 23 years, her emotions are still raw. She thinks of Rhianna every day.
“At work it happens a lot. The girls in the office are all around Rhianna’s age and they always talk about catching up with their mum, their shopping trips, their lunches,” she said. “I end up having to walk away or block out the conversation.” Like police, she has her own theories on what may have happened to Rhianna.
She feels the culprit may have been someone she knew if Rhianna was taken from the house. She also knows Rhianna would not have gotten into a car willingly with anyone she didn’t know “without screaming blue murder”.
“I would assume if she was on the street there would have been someone in the vicinity who would have heard that,” she said. “My feeling is it was somebody she knew, that’s what I can’t understand.”
While her grief is constant, Ms Barreau says she is longing for closure so she can try and move on.
“It is the just not knowing, because it is just ongoing,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s ever going to come about in my lifetime, that’s what I am scared of.”
She understands the most likely method by which the case may be resolved is via the $1 million reward on offer — and she also understands it is highly likely such information may well come from a criminal.
“I understand there are also people out there who will do anything for money,” she said.
“But if that leads to solving it, to justice, to being able to find Rhianna, that’s fine.”
Rhianna’s father, Leon, shares this view.
“If a person’s conscience is triggered by greed, then well and good,” he said.
“At the end of the day somebody knows what happened.”
Like his former wife, Mr Barreau has strong recollections of the day his daughter vanished. At the time he was living on the Gold Coast.
When his former wife rang him several hours after she arrived home, his first thought was to get to Adelaide to help find her. He arrived with his wife, Sandra, the next morning. “She was a reliable, trustworthy young kid who would not have gone anywhere without leaving a note or a message in the circumstances that were explained to me,” he said.
Mr Barreau said he had last spoken with Rhianna a fortnight before she vanished. It was one of their usual friendly, chatty catch-up calls. They were close, with both Rhianna and Shannon spending school holidays with him on the Gold Coast.
Ironically, the only reason Rhianna was at home the day she vanished — in the school holidays — was because Shannon was on a school camp and she elected to stay home, rather than travel to the Gold Coast. While they spoke regularly, Mr Barreau last saw Rhianna in August, 1992, while he was in Adelaide for work and prior to that when he remarried on December 28, 1991. Rhianna was a bridesmaid.
Even now, the pair can’t bring themselves to display wedding photographs in their house because of the painful memories of Rhianna they invoke.
“It takes us straight back to that moment. She looked absolutely amazing,” Sandra, 54, said.
While Mr Barreau has accepted his daughter is deceased, he still gets angry when he thinks about the circumstances of his loss and simply not knowing what took place.
“She would be 36 now and I think what sort of a beautiful young woman she would be, what she would be doing,” he said. “I have been totally denied the knowledge of what happened to Rhianna and being able to deal with her remains respectfully.
“I am hoping there will be a resolution, but I seriously doubt it will be in our favour, to be honest. I am convinced she is deceased, it is just a matter of where she is and what happened to her.”
While Mr Barreau has imagined many, many scenarios over the past two decades to try and explain Rhianna’s disappearance, he concedes none make sense.
He doesn’t believe she would have let anyone inside the house she didn’t know and feels it would be most unusual she would have been taken off a quiet suburban street without someone noticing.
Sadly, Mr Barreau’s father, Rex, passed away in 2012, aged 88, still grieving over the loss of his granddaughter. His mother, Muriel, who “just worshipped” Rhianna is 88 and he fears she too will pass without knowing what happened.
“If I go to my grave not knowing what happened to her, I will find out when I get up there. She will be there waiting for me,” Mr Barreau said. “I asked my dad to come back and tell me, but he hasn’t yet. That was the last thing I asked him when he took his last breath. At least he now knows.”
If you have any information about this case call Crime-stoppers on 1800 333 000
Immunity, $1m reward to solve mystery
IMMUNITY from prosecution and a $1 million reward are available for anyone who helps solve Rhianna Barreau’s murder.
Major Crime Detective Superintendent Des Bray said both could be a “life changing incentive” for someone to assist the investigation.
“It is time for those with information to come forward and do the right thing,” he said. “More importantly, information provided may enable us to find Rhianna and return her to her family, and make the person responsible pay for the terrible crime they have committed. Do not let those responsible continue to walk free among us.”
The Rhianna Barreau case file is undergoing a comprehensive review to try and advance it. Case officer Detective Brevet Sergeant Campbell Hill said this will include reassessing all witness statements and reinterviewing several persons of interest. “As far as we are concerned there is someone, if not several people, who know something,” he said.
While he would not elaborate on the connection between Rhianna and any person of interest, he said some were of interest “more than others”.
“There are also people who for different reasons may have lied to us. We would like them to have a think about their reasons and motivation,” he said.
“Allegiances change over the years, their attitudes to police change. Those people we would reach out to.”