Rachel Antonio’s private thoughts released to the public

ONLY one thing occupied the schoolgirl’s private thoughts - “I dream about him,” she wrote in a letter to a friend, made public for the first time since she mysteriously disappeared 18 years ago.

ONLY one thing occupied Rachel Antonio’s private thoughts.

In her daylight hours, and night time ones too, she could not stop thinking of Robert Hytch.

“I dream about him,” she wrote in one letter to a friend.

“I can’t stop thinking about him. I even walk to the shop hoping I’ll see him. It’s really weird. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”

Rachel sent the letter and others like it to a school friend who had moved from Bowen, north Queensland, to Victoria.

They can be made public for the first time after the coroner released the brief of evidence from Rachel’s case to The Courier-Mail.

Page after page reveal an infatuation with the handsome older man Rachel knew through the local surf life saving club.

Mr Hytch, who was 25 when 16-year-old Rachel went missing, ­denies they had an intimate relationship and says he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

An extract from Rachel Antonio's diary.

Rachel’s letters to her friend, Alex Ginga, started years before she disappeared and, at first, were filled with talk of school and teachers.

“December 25, 1996. School holidays are so boring but it’s still better than being at school,” she wrote. “It was my dog’s sixth birthday yesterday. He got two litres of ice cream as a present. Lucky dog hey?”

But as she matured the letters changed. In 1997 she increasingly wrote about boys. In particular, she chronicled her alleged dealings with brothers Scott and Robert Hytch.

She did not want her parents to know about it.

“Please don’t write anything about Scott or Robert on a postcard,” she implored in one letter.

Scott was seven years younger than Robert, and Rachel claimed she went out with him briefly first.

“Well, I am over Scott. 2 days after school broke up Nathan Foot asked me out … There’s only one problem – Scott is so jealous.”

If Rachel was dismissive about Scott, it was the opposite for Robert. In the letters she obsessed about him.

“Dear Alex, how are you? I’m not very good. Last Sunday (20 July) I did something with Robert … let’s just say we almost had sex,” reads one.

It was a similar story in her diary where she wrote of her on-again, off-again relationship with Robert.

“Every time we have an argument I get really upset,” one diary entry reads.

“I constantly worry about what he’s doing and who he’s with and I just want things to work out between us. In Townsville I was physically sick with worry and I realised the next 2 yrs of my life are so important (Yrs 11 + 12) so I can’t have any problems/distractions.

“I know he will find another ­girlfriend soon and I will be tossed away.”

Episodes of Searching for Rachel Antonio will be released each Monday.

Follow the links to listen:

iPhone or iPad users search for “rachel antonio podcast” on iTunes — by clicking subscribe, each weekly episode will appear on your podcast app.

Android users can listen by following The Courier-Mail on Soundcloud at soundcloud.com/couriermail.