The Missing Australia podcast: Unsolved case of 12yo girl still haunts Aussie detective

An ex-detective can’t get the abduction of Rhianna Barreau, 12, out of his mind. Listen to The Missing Australia podcast to see why, decades on, he thinks the case can still be solved.

He investigated more than 70 homicides throughout his career but it’s the unsolved case of a missing 12-year-old girl that still haunts former detective Allen Arthur.

Now aged 83, Mr Arthur – a former homicide detective – wants to give Rhianna Barreau’s parents the answers they have been waiting on for more than three decades.

With no body, and no arrest, it’s also the closure Mr Arthur needs.

“It just aggravates me a great deal to think we haven’t come up with a solution,” Mr Arthur told The Missing Australia podcast host Meni Caroutas.

Rhianna Barreau went missing from her home address at Morphett Vale, South Australia.

“We haven’t managed to give the parents the satisfaction of knowing that their daughter has been found. And it’s a bitter taste in my mouth for not having been able to successfully bring the inquiry to a conclusion,”

Rhianna was last seen on October 7, 1992. It was the school holidays and she had spent the morning home alone at her Morphett Vale home in suburban Adelaide.

In a tragic twist, her fate may have been sealed by a snap strike called by local bus drivers that prevented her meeting up with her mum for lunch.

Instead, she stayed home by herself aside from walking the short distance to a newsagent to buy her US pen pal a Christmas card.

Retired Detective Allen Arthur is haunted by the Rhianna Barreau case, one he was never able to solve. Now in his 80s, he wants justice for Rhianna and closure for her family. Picture: Matt Turner.

When Rhianna’s mother Paula Barreau got home, the house was locked, the TV was on and there were records on the floor that Rhianna had been playing.

The Christmas card she purchased from the newsagent at 11.19am was still in its wrapper sitting on the dining table, indicating she had returned home from her short walk.

There were no signs of a struggle and only her keys were missing.

Mr Arthur was one of the first police officers to attend the home, and from the earliest stages of the investigation a feeling of dread crept over him.

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“It didn’t look good from the very early stages. I shook my head in the car thinking, ‘Yeah, this doesn’t look good’,” Mr Arthur told podcast host Meni Caroutas.

Caroutas said police explored three possibilities – Rhianna left again and something happened, she was lured outside by someone she trusted, or a stranger saw her walking alone and followed her home and made up a story to get her outside.

Mr Arthur suspects “someone living nearby” was responsible and “decided to take advantage of her close to her home”.

A store mannequin dressed similarly to Rhianna Barreau was used by police during their appeal for sightings.

State Emergency Service personnel, volunteers and family members, including Rhianna's father Leon Barreau (blue cap), search the Onkaparinga Gorge area.

“Anyone that wants to take advantage of a young girl by way of abduction doesn’t want to be seen on the streets for too long or for too far,” he said.

“These are only my personal theories, but I’ve held them since the day that I was involved with the first investigation”.

Police had two major leads, but both went nowhere. A white Holden Torana with Victorian plates was seen parked near Rhianna’s house, but a nationwide search failed to find it or the owner.

And someone called police from a payphone to say they found a set of keys like Rhianna’s on a driveway – but after ringing police he returned to the driveway and they were gone.

Mr Arthur fears Rhianna was abducted by pedophile.

An SA Police hand-out offering reward for information regarding the case.

“They don’t look any different from most people. But they just act differently and they choose their time. They target their victim … probably have a look first to see what that victim does. And then they strike at the right time,” he said.

Mr Arthur has found himself looking for Rhianna all these years later himself.

“Whenever I travel in the area where she was living and [last] seen I keep looking at the paddocks and thinking I wonder which paddock she might be in. There’s no answer to that,” he said.

Originally published as The Missing Australia podcast: Unsolved case of 12yo girl still haunts Aussie detective