Family, friends speak as Lee Ellen Stace’s horrific Red Cliff, northern NSW murder remains unsolved after almost 30 years

Lee Ellen Stace was just 16 when she was murdered on the NSW North Coast – her killer has not been captured almost three decades on. Friends and family are still desperate for answers.

The Red Cliff campgrounds stretching along the NSW North Coast are a place of stark beauty.

There is the glistening ocean, ochre-coloured cliffs and bone grey scrub, as well as a steady stream of tourists and locals camping out for a holiday, day in the surf, or some fishing.

But it is also a site forever marked by a chilling past.

Red Cliff pictured after the murder.

Lee Ellen Stace was just 16 when she was killed in 1997. Her case has still not been solved.

Despite her parents reporting Lee missing when she did not return home after work at Yamba on September 2, 1997, it took more than a month for her remains to be found at Red Cliff, near Brooms Head.

Two campers, both medical practitioners, found a jaw bone in the camping area when they were going for a swim – DNA analysis and the subsequent discovery of other human remains and personal belongings soon confirmed the worst.

Lee is believed to have been raped and murdered at this site of spectacular beauty.

The memorial for Lee Ellen Stace is cared for by her parents.

Lee’s childhood best friend, Terri Blackwell, remembers the 16-year-old as “full of fun and adventure, a bubbly person who always loved the beach”.

“She was just full of life, had big ambitions and wanted to become a nanny one day because she loved little kids,” she said.

The pair first met at the local bowling club when Ms Blackwell was five and Lee was seven – and quickly became “inseparable”.

NSW Police has a $1 million reward outstanding for information into the 1997 murder of Lee Ellen Stace.

Their friendship was cemented and only grew when Lee’s parents made the decision to move to Brooms Head from Maitland permanently in 1992.

On most weekends, Ms Blackwell and Lee would walk from Brooms Head to Red Cliff – they knew the area like the back of their hands.

Lee was never a big fan of school, as both Ms Blackwell and her parents mention. She finished up when she was 16, soon pulled out of TAFE and then landed a job at Yamba’s Bi-Lo.

She was killed before she could collect her first paycheck.

Lee Ellen Stace and Terri Blackwell.

Ms Blackwell said she has been haunted by memories of the day Lee vanished – and the weeks which followed.

On September 2, Ms Blackwell said she planned to wag school and hanging out with Lee.

They both missed the bus and were driven to Maclean, where Lee hitched a ride to Yamba and her best friend was taken to school by her father.

“She gave me a hug and said ‘I’ll see you soon on the bus’,” Ms Blackwell remembers.

That afternoon Ms Blackwell had netball practice and stayed at her aunt's' place so she did not notice Lee’s absence on the bus home.

The terrible reality dawned the following afternoon, soon after Ms Blackwell jumped on the school bus home.

“At Gulmarrad primary school, there were like six detectives, six men in black suits, that asked to have me removed from the bus and I had no idea what was going on,” she said.

What she remembers next is getting back on the bus in shock, telling a friend: “Lee’s missing and she’s dead”.

Her gut told her Lee had met with evil.

“I knew it. I just had that gut feeling from then that she wasn’t coming home,” Ms Blackwell said.

Peter and Robyn Stace hold a picture of Lee Ellen Stace and her sister.

Lee’s parents, Robyn and Peter Stace, also remember that evening like it was yesterday.

“We waited and we reported her missing first thing the next day,” Ms Stace said.

Ms Stace said they called around town and reached out for help throughout the Clarence.

They both had a feeling something was terribly wrong.

Ms Stace said it still felt like “time has stopped” since her world came crashing down.

Mr Stace, in particular, remembers his gut instinct telling him his daughter was in trouble because she was afraid of the dark.

It was an agonising six weeks until their daughter’s remains were uncovered.

The increasingly desperate search for Lee is chronicled in a scrapbook Ms Stace compiled of newspaper clippings.

When she first went missing, Mr Stace travelled the Northern Rivers, from Lismore to Byron Bay, putting up posters in the desperate hope his daughter would return home safe.

A plaque on the table Mr and Ms Stace set up to honour their daughter.

It’s now been almost three decades since their daughter’s death and both Mr and Ms Stace said they were not holding out hope for a conviction.

Mr Stace was critical of the NSW Police Homicide Squad’s efforts to solve the case and described the investigation as bungled from day one.

He said officers from out of town did not know the area and seemed intent on pinning down certain suspects – none of whom were found to be guilty of Lee’s murder.

“I knew they were on the wrong track but they wanted to go there and it was a complete waste of time and money,” Mr Stace said.

“At one stage they paid a bloke $1000 to wear a wire in the local pub (to get information on one of their suspects), but the whole freaking town knew about it, even up to Maclean, before it went down.

“Right from day one, in my opinion, it was just one big stuff up.

“I always say ‘you can still live in hope’, but hope is fading.

“If someone knows something, just come forward – there is a $1 million reward out there.

“It’s coming up to 26 years and that’s a long time to be holding secrets.”

Peter Stace at the table close to where his daughter is believed to have been murdered.

A 2009 coronial inquest into the murder by Deputy State Coroner Magistrate Carl Milovanovich also criticised the police investigation.

The report stated: “It should never take 12 years (for the police) to put a coronial brief together.”

Mr Milovanovich continued: “It perhaps should be said that if a 16-year-old child disappeared today in similar circumstances the professionalism and priorities of the NSW Police and the manner of the investigation would be far different to what happened in 1997.”

“Regrettably in 1997 and even more recently, NSW Police have not always attached the appropriate concern or a holistic approach to missing persons,” he said.

“It makes me shudder to contemplate that somebody may well be living in this very community who is capable of such brutality and with so little respect for human life.”

Lee Ellen Stace and Terri Blackwell.

Ms Blackwell still has hope of finding “the final piece of the puzzle”.

She has carried feelings of survivors guilt and been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Soon after Lee was killed, Ms Blackwell’s parents moved away from Brooms Head to Tasmania, concerned for their daughter’s safety.

Ms Blackwell said: “They day he, or they, took her life, I feel like they also partially took mine.”

“I had to move away from my family, my cousins – it’s just a hatred for that, for what happened.

“I’ve just been robbed. That’s the simplest way to put it.

“He took her life, but he destroyed so many other people’s lives by doing what he did to her, it was just a domino effect.

“Lee’s sister never went on to have children because she was too afraid to, Lee’s parents have never been able to leave Brooms Head because of the connection they have to their daughter there, and I find it so hard to even go back to the place I so loved.”

Like Ms Blackwell, Lee’s parents say their daughters death resulted in many other lives being essentially “destroyed”.

However, Lee’s memory lives on.

Ms Blackwell has six children. They all know about her best friend and refer to her as “Aunty Lee”.

“It’s something I’ve shared with my children,” Ms Blackwell said.

“The harsh realities of the world, regardless of the size of the town or the people that you know. Things aren’t what they seem.”

She just watched her eldest daughter turn 14 — an event Ms Blackwell described as emotional. It’s the age her own “life was thrown into absolute turmoil”.

She hasn’t given up hope the culprits will one day be convicted. She swears she will keep fighting for her friend until it becomes a reality.

“I’m still coming and I won’t stop,” she said.

Peter and Robyn Stace in 1997.

Mr and Mrs Stace, remain at Brooms Head and keep watch over an unofficial memorial site they set up for their daughter, making sure it’s maintained.

“This is where she is, so this is where I am,” Mr Stace said.

“I’m not going to let it beat me.”

July 21 would have been Lee’s 42nd birthday.

On each of her birthdays and the anniversary of her death, Lee’s parents visit the memorial.

A patch of grass, a table, and a cross surrounded by flowers and notes mark the spot where Lee’s remains were found, and where she was most likely killed.

“Lots of people go there, lots of people we don’t know and a lot of Lee’s friends too, they often visit there,” Mr Stace said.

He put the cross in with a three of his mates. It’s been secured in concrete to prevent it being removed.

“Sometimes when it all gets too much, and I get the s--ts with the world, I just come up here by myself …,” Mr Stace said through tears.

“It’s her resting place.”

Peter Stace visits the memorial for his murdered daughter Lee Ellen Stace.

There are hundreds of unsolved murders and disappearances in northern NSW.

Many cases get reviewed, but fresh investigations are not common, and a conviction or answers are even rarer.

NSW Police declined to comment on cold cases and unsolved North Coast homicides.

A spokeswoman said police were “not in a position to assist” at the time.

Do you know more? Phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.