Earlier that day the body of the four-year-old was found face down in a creek, not far from her family home at Emu Plains. She had been raped, strangled, drowned and bashed over the head with a rock.

“He was very matter of fact. Towner told me what happened, where it happened and I asked him questions about where he was with her, where he threw her galoshes and he answered everything. There was no problem with it,” says Laney, now retired.

“When I finished the interview with him I asked him if he would show us where everything occurred at the park. He was quite happy to do that, but the only comment he did make was ‘I don’t want to see Derek’— the child’s father.

“Towner recalled details, he remembered everything I can tell you now. He knew exactly what happened so when I heard later on that after he spoke to the psychiatrists that he couldn’t recall anything, I just thought, that cannot happen — he can’t do that,” says Laney.

“Towner pleaded not guilty. We went through all the processes with two trials and I don’t care about what he thinks, you couldn’t not remember that, what he did. I find that difficult to believe — he certainly remembered the day he confessed.

“Towner said he was drunk the day of the murder after almost finishing a bottle of tequila, but then said he rode his bike from Kingswood to Emu Plains — seven kilometres away.

It was just another lie that he told. Because at one stage he even suggested that I made up the record of interview, but there were things in it that I couldn’t have known.

“Things like the tequila bottle, that police actually found at his house. How could I have known that he drunk tequila? And he told a lot of lies. I think he was trying to back himself out of it.”

Towner’s murder retrial was ordered because Towner alleged Detective-Sergeant Laney hit him ‘five or six times’ and that he only signed the confession because of the strong police presence.

“It came out of left field for me as there was never a suggestion prior to that, that I had hit him. I was surprised that the allegation was made in court. I think when these guys go into the jail system they learn from all the bush lawyers about what they should and shouldn’t be doing, and I suppose that’s where he pulled that one from. He got the retrial,” says Laney.

“We weren’t allowed to use the evidence in the murder trial, but the following day after I charged him, the next day Tower was taken to Parramatta jail and he actually told a nurse down at the jail what he had done. And there were no police around — no one coercing him to confess as he alleged in court we had done to him. The nurse made a statement but when we went to trial, because of her employment and the fact that it was said while he was being treated by her, I think they made it inadmissible.

It would be another piece to the puzzle.

“This was a sexually-motivated crime. This little kiddie, she was a beautiful little girl and this fellow who knew her very well, drowned her in a creek because she started screaming when he wanted to have sex with her — his thoughts were, ‘Well, I will kill her’.

“It was extremely callous and cold. She was a family friend and I often thought afterwards, how anyone could firstly push that baby girl under the water and leave her under there for a couple of minutes, but then to make sure, finish her off by hitting her over the head with a big rock.

“I certainly have grave concerns about his release from prison. I personally think he is a risk to the community. He is cunning and will say whatever he needs to say to get himself out of jail.”

MAY 17, 1989

It was just after lunch on May 17, 1989, when Jurina Hickson dressed her four-year-old daughter Lauren in warm clothes — a pink windcheater, jeans and gumboots — and told her not to play too far away from the house.

“Yes Mummy,” called out Lauren as she set off on her bike.

“I watched Lauren through the kitchen window as she climbed the steps into her friend’s house,” Jurina says. Satisfied she was safe, she sat down to watch Days of Our Lives.

“When the show finished I went outside to look for Lauren,” says Jurina. “She wasn’t at her friend’s house so I asked one of the neighbours to help me find her.

“I wasn’t worried at this stage because Lauren was an intelligent girl and she didn’t speak to anyone she didn’t know. She also knew she wasn’t allowed to play past the back fence.”

But as the sun started to go down, the frantic search for Lauren escalated.

Jurina called the police at 5pm to report a missing child.

“The call was lodged with the Penrith Police who attended the scene immediately,” says Laney.

“They canvassed the area and asked Jurina what she had seen that day.”

That’s when Jurina mentioned an old workmate of Lauren’s dad had visited their place.

“I was still watching the telly when Neville dropped off a bike he had borrowed from Derek,” says Jurina.

Neville Raymond Towner had been a family friend of the Hicksons for years and had known Lauren since she was a baby. Neville’s mum had also babysat Lauren on occasion.

“I remember everything about that afternoon. After Lauren went off to play, I saw Mary the neighbour returning to her place with a bunch of groceries in brown paper bags,” says Jurina.

“There was a train roaring along on the overhead bridge when Neville knocked on the door. He was muttering away about something and was covered in mud. I just waved him away to be honest.”

Police then came across a neighbour who had seen a man talking with Lauren about 2pm.

“I had just taken a phone call and was watching them because I knew that the little girl never spoke to anybody,” Helen Hybinett said.

“I heard a man’s voice ... then the little girl left the tree and went towards the man ... I looked and she was cuddling into him,” said Helen. “And she had her hands around his neck, close to him.”

Helen said she continued watching because Lauren would never speak to anybody, “not even to me”.

The police showed Helen a picture of the man who had returned the bike to the Hicksons that afternoon - Neville Towner.

Helen confirmed that yes, that was the same man who Lauren was talking to.

“Towner was called in to give a statement about his movements that day. First off he denied seeing Lauren,” says Laney, who was the lead investigator on the case.

The next morning a massive search was launched, involving more than 100 police, soldiers and members of the State Emergency Services.

Laney and another detective from the homicide squad were directed by superiors to head out to Emu Plains as soon as they could.

“I was told that it didn’t look good. Then as we where driving out on the motorway we heard the call over the radio that they had found Lauren’s body.”

A helicopter had located some of Lauren’s clothing stuck in a tree. At 9.50am a soldier found Lauren’s body face down in the creek, 30m from where the clothing was found.

Forensic examinations would show Lauren suffered from extensive bruising to her face and neck, debris in her lungs, blood in her stomach, a 2.5cm tear to her vagina and a fractured skull. She had a 57mm cut on her forehead which had penetrated to the bone.

“Lauren was found in a creek 500m from her home, with just a singlet wrapped around her neck, submerged in about a metre of water,” Laney says.

Knowing there was an eyewitness account of a man talking to Lauren around the time she went missing, the detectives called Towner back in.

“We sat down and went through his statement to the police the previous night. I said to Towner, ‘Is that right?’ And he said ‘yes’.

“I asked him about the lady who saw him with Lauren in the afternoon and pretty well straight away he said, ‘Look, I will tell you what happened, the statement is not right, I will tell you what happened’. And I went into a record of interview,” says Laney.

POLICE TRANSCRIPT OF CONFESSION

“Did you see Lauren on May 18?”

“Yes, she was playing in the park by herself.”

“What did you do then?”

“I walked up to her and she gave me a cuddle, then we went for a walk down to the river bank.”

“What happened when you walked down to the river rank with Lauren?”

“She wouldn’t stop screaming so I put her head under water.”

“Why was she screaming?”

“She just doesn’t like … She had been told she wasn’t allowed to go down the back of the house heaps of times. She just started screaming.”

“Did you do anything to Lauren to cause her to scream?”

“No.”

“Did you remove any of Lauren’s clothing?”

“Her pants.”

“Can you tell me where this happened?”

“There’s a little creek that runs through the back of the caravan park, it hasn’t got a name or anything, it’s just a little creek.”

“What did Lauren do when you removed her pants?

“She screamed.”

“Was Lauren sitting down when you removed her pants?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do with those pants?”

“They are in the mud down there.”

“Did you remove Lauren’s galoshes?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do with those?”

“I put them in the grass.”

“After you removed Lauren’s pants she started screaming, what did you do then?”

“I tried but it didn’t work.”

“Can you explain what you mean by that?”

“Sex.”

“What did you do?”

“I pulled my jeans down and put my penis near her.”

“What was the girl doing when you had your penis near her?”

“She started screaming and to shut her up I shoved her head in the water and umm when she came up she looked to me as if she had already gone. But she started breathing so I grabbed a rock and hit her with it.”

“Did you cause any injury when you hit her on the forehead?

“A big gash.”

“Did she bleed?”

“I didn’t stay around.”

THE AFTERMATH

Lauren’s mum Jurina collapsed in shock when she was told Lauren’s body had been found.

She blamed herself for daughter’s death.

“If only I had kept her in she would still be alive. There were times when I didn’t want to go on,” says Jurina. “I thought I was better off dead just so I could be with her.

“The coroner said she had a compound fracture to the skull and when I saw her in the funeral home her little face was completely split — they had to stitch up all under her eye.”

Towner was tried and sentenced for Lauren’s murder in 1990, but the court of criminal appeal “reluctantly” ordered a retrial because there had been “an unacceptably grave risk that there was a miscarriage of justice”.

Towner’s appeal was based on the confession he made to police.

He argued his record of interview was fabricated and he had been coerced into signing it by police assaults.

Even though the judge said there was a “wealth of independent evidence” which corroborated the confession, including evidence placing Towner at the scene at the relevant time and “evidence of a persistent pattern of lies of such a nature and made in such circumstances that the inference easily was available that he was lying because of guilt and his desire to avoid inculpation”, Towner was granted a new trial.

In 1992, Towner was given a life sentence with no parole, but a judge subsequently amended his sentence to life with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

Today, Towner will be considered by the State Parole Board to be released from prison.

“I personally think he is a risk to the community. He is cunning enough — he will say whatever he needs to say to get himself out,” says Laney, now retired.

A spokesperson for NSW Corrective Services Minister Peter Severin said: “Neville Towner was first refused parole in 2009 and then again in 2010 to 2015. His earliest possible release date was May 2009. The CSNSW Commissioner will be opposing parole. If Towner was granted parole he would be subject to conditions set by the NSW State Parole Authority for the remainder of his life.”