Rachel Antonio podcast: Former Bowen pool manager’s knowledge a mystery

A FORMER pool manager appears to know more than he is telling about a schoolgirl who vanished from a Queensland town - and he denies he made two mystery phone calls on the day she disappeared.

• Searching For Rachel Antonio podcast
• ‘It was like her life meant nothing’
• Alibi hinged on missing half-hour
• ‘They never came and asked me’

WHAT is Sid Pate hiding?

The former Bowen pool manager appears to know more than he is telling about Rachel Antonio, the schoolgirl who vanished from the north Queensland town on Anzac Day, 1998.

Mr Pate is now working as a builder on the Sunshine Coast, and his knowledge or otherwise about the day Rachel disappeared has never been resolved.

Coroner David O’Connell found in July that Mr Pate was withholding evidence, but exactly what he could not say.

“He is certainly a person of interest with respect to information which may assist in relation to Rachel’s disappearance,” Mr O’Connell found.

He also found that the person responsible for her death was Robert Hytch. Hytch is appealing that decision.

Mr Pate’s movements and possible knowledge of events is part of a new instalment of podcast series Searching For Rachel Antonio, launched today.

Rachel visited the local pool at about midday on the day she went missing. She was there for about half an hour but is not believed to have had a swim.

She may have been hoping to see lifeguard Robert Hytch, who did casual shifts at the pool on weekends but was not rostered on that day.

Mr Hytch has been accused of having a relationship with Rachel and became a suspect in her disappearance.

Much of the speculation around Mr Pate centres on two mystery phone calls made from the pool on the afternoon Rachel went missing.

The first call was made to Rachel’s home at 4.51pm but was not answered. Seconds later a call was made from the pool to Robert Hytch’s home and lasted 38 seconds.

Mr Pate, who had the lease for the pool, was the only person working but says he does not know who made the calls.

He told Rachel’s inquest: “All I can think of is that I was doing a water test or out of the office at that time.”

Coroner O’Connell found: “To me it was very clear that Mr Pate knew who made those telephone calls, and he wished to place himself the furthest distance possible from the kiosk when those calls were being made.”

The enduring mystery of the disappearance of Rachel Antonio is the subject of The Courier-Mail’s top-rating podcast series.

The podcast discusses how Mr Hytch phoned Rachel at her home at 5.08pm the day she vanished. They spoke for almost a minute and a half.

Mr Pate, who has never been a suspect in Rachel’s disappearance, said he closed the pool early to go to a 7pm movie the night she vanished.

He was early so he rode his bicycle along the Queens Beach Esplanade.

Rachel was last seen by others walking on the same road at about 7pm, but Mr Pate said he did not see her.

Mr Pate said he then watched the movie Good Will Hunting – the same film Rachel was meant to see. Then he rode straight home. Cinema manager Ben De Luca did not remember him being there.

Mr O’Connell reported: “I found Mr Pate’s explanation of his movements to be very curious, as he said that he rode along the foreshore area where Rachel was last seen, but claimed he did not see her, whereas at that time a number of others did.

Former Bowen Pool Manager Sid Pate outside his Tewantin home.

“Mr Pate was a very interesting witness who displayed, from what I observed, a significant internal conflict when giving his evidence.

“I have the very clear impression that when Mr Pate was answering questions he was tailoring his evidence to conceal further information, and so was not being completely open and honest with the evidence he gave.

“I consider that Mr Pate’s evidence that he rode deliberately quickly to the cinema, and then did a ‘lap’ of the block to cool down, but never seeing or observing Rachel whatsoever, to be very curious.

“I am firmly of the view that Mr Pate has further information in relation to something that he observed, or did, but is withholding that information.”

The Hytch family circa 2000, including Robert (centre front) and Scott (back right).

Cops squeezed suspect’s little brother

POLICE tried to convince lifeguard Robert Hytch’s brother to share information about missing schoolgirl Rachel Antonio.

A previously unpublished police recording reveals two detectives confronted Mr Hytch’s younger brother Scott at a Bowen farm in October 1998.

It was just over five months after Rachel vanished, and Robert Hytch was by then the prime suspect in her disappearance.

Robert, then 25, and his family denied knowing anything about what happened to her.

“We are just trying to sort fact from fiction,” Detective Paul McCusker told Scott at the farm, where he was working.

“Now if we did not come and talk to you we wouldn’t be doing our job. The only way to find out is to ask you.”

The two detectives grilled Scott, who was then 18, about what relationship he and his brother Robert had with 16-year-old Rachel.

The stretch of beach at Bowen where Rachel Antonio was last seen.

When Scott tried to tell the officers he was working, they ignored him and kept asking questions.

When he said he would answer questions at the station, they said they would talk to him then and there.

Rachel had claimed in her diary and letters to a friend that she was romantically involved with Scott and later his brother Robert.

Detective: “There is either 10, 15, 20 people telling us lies all about yourself and Robert or there’s two people that aren’t telling the truth.”

Scott: “I’m telling the truth. I swear to God I am not going out with this girl.”

Detective: “I know you are in a bit of a hard situation there at home. We all got brothers and sisters that we feel loyal to or whatever.

“But at any time when you think you should talk to us about something you can come and talk to us.”

Scott insisted he believed Rachel had run away.