Will the mystery of Revelle Balmain’s disappearance finally be solved?
THE disappearance of 22-year-old model Revelle Balmain in 1994 captivated Sydney. Her belongings were found strewn across several streets in the Kingsford area in the days after her disappearance, but her body has never been found.
NSW
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IT is the Cinderella mystery that has long baffled the Harbour City: Who killed 22-year-old model and sex worker Revelle Balmain?
A man named as a person of interest in her suspected murder maintains he dropped Ms Balmain at a Kingsford pub on the evening of November 5, 1994, but police say there were no confirmed sightings of her there.
Two days after her disappearance, her cork-heeled platform shoes and the keys to her Bellevue Hill unit were found scattered across streets in the Kingsford area.
Her body has never been found. A coronial inquest in 1998 and 1999 revealed Ms Balmain had been working at two high-end Sydney escort agencies and on the day she disappeared had visited client Gavin Owen Samer.
Mr Samer has denied any involvement telling police at the time he dropped Ms Balmain off at The Red Tomato Inn, and never saw her again.
Then deputy state coroner John Abernethy found Ms Balmain was the victim of a homicide and identified Mr Samer as a suspect, but did not recommend any charges. In 2008, police reopened the case.
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The inquest also heard that another person of interest was Zoran Stanojevic, the owner of an escort agency Ms Balmain worked at for six weeks.
Mr Stanojevic gave contradictory statements to police but has always denied he had anything to do with her death.
Disgraced playboy Mark Coulton allegedly once told someone that Ms Balmain was murdered by brothel bosses for doing extra cash jobs on the side. At the inquest, Coulton denied he ever said she had been “whacked”.