Almost half a century on, a loyal friend names a suspected killer
SHIRLEY Eldridge was working in Rockhampton when her colleague Mima was murdered. Fifty years on, she believes she has found Mima’s killer.
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IT was the work trip Mima McKim-Hill wasn’t meant to go on, volunteered for, and never returned from.
Instead the 21-year-old was abducted, raped and strangled, her body dumped near a creek on a lonely stretch of road between in Central Queensland and became one of Queensland’s oldest cold cases.
Now, almost 50 years after Mima’s death on March 9, 1967, a new book claims to unmask her killer.
It’s not the ending author Shirley Eldridge hoped for when the story of Mima made its brutal entrance into her life.
Ms Eldridge was a friend and colleague of Mima’s, both working for the Capricornia Regional Electricity Board in Rockhampton, when Mima disappeared.
Ms Eldridge was supposed to be out on the road that day, but when Mima put her hand up so Ms Eldridge wouldn’t miss another meeting, the murder which followed meant the friends’ lives would always be entwined.
Ms Eldridge has spent a lifetime since trying to find her friend’s killer after the initial police investigation and an inquest in November 1967 couldn’t.
Those efforts redoubled and her dogged determination surfaced in 2004 when she finally read the report of that inquest in detail, and Queensland Police reactivated the cold case.
“I felt obliged to not let this go. It fell into my lap and I couldn’t walk away from it,” Ms Eldridge said.
“I felt duty bound to get it out there.”
The trail of half-truths, bungles and missteps finally led her to the man she now names as Mima’s killer in her book, Mima: A case of abduction, rape and murder.
Ms Eldridge names Mima’s likely murderer as German tanker driver Erich Seefus, named as a suspect by Mima’s family and who gave evidence at the inquest, but was never charged.
Queensland Police have not confirmed the allegations raised in Ms Eldridge’s book.
The Mima case remains open. A $250,00 reward remains on offer for information which leads to the conviction of anyone over her death.
Cold case police in Queensland had Seefus back on their radar for the killing in 2008, but by the time they made moves to travel to South Australia to question him, he had died of cancer, Ms Eldridge said.
Remembering that fateful day and what has happened in almost 50 years since, Ms Eldridge says she could not let it go.
“Isobel, Mima and I worked together. Isobel was the boss, 33, Mima was 21, and I was the junior, 20,” she remembers.
On that day, Isobel and Nima left for a work trip in the company car, separated, and Mima was to collect Isobel at the end of the day in the car and return to Rockhampton.
That night, Mima and Ms Eldridge had arranged to meet for dinner and a movie. Mima even had a new outfit.
She never got to wear it.
It was found in the car, with no sign of Mima, the following day.
When Ms Eldridge opened the car and saw Mima’s handbag in there, containing her pay packet intact, the prickling of foreboding surfaced.
On March 26, everyone’s worst fears were realised when her body was found.
In the years after, with no answers, Ms Eldridge married, had children, and as she says ‘Mima took a back seat to all these other passengers”.
But the mystery and the loss ticked away in the background, reawakened with a vengeance when she read the inquest report in 2004.
“I realised at the time of the inquest, Mima’s mother was 58 and now I was 58, reading it,” she said.
“My daughter was 22 and Mima was 21. So I saw the whole situation for the first time through the eyes of a mother, and that really affected me.”
She revisited old evidence, questioned former police and relatives and witnesses, pored over the case and shared every bit of information she could with police.
In 2008, new information led her — and, as it turned out had also led police — to Seefus.
“Police said stop, leave him alone, they couldn’t share what they had with us, understandably,” Ms Eldridge said.
“They needed a confession, but they didn’t get there in time.”
When police discovered Seefus was dead, they tried for DNA samples, but Seefus’ wife had returned overseas, and his body had been cremated, so none was available, she said.
“Talk about a slap in the face. I was in shock because they were so close,” Ms Eldridge said.
Ms Eldridge says she has no closure.
“Closure is a word I have trouble with. Mima just lives with me now,” she said.
“There’s no closure. It’s just a matter of accommodating the memory.
“I just wish I could have looked him in the eye.
“We travelled together often, we’d stay overnight on work trips sharing a room. we had girlie conversations.
“We joined the local theatre group together. Mima never got to play her part.”
Mima: A case of abduction, rape and murder (Short Stop Press, $34.99)
shortstoppress.com/non-fiction/mima
Originally published as Almost half a century on, a loyal friend names a suspected killer
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