The disappearance and suspected murder of the popular 18-year-old business college student became one of the northern beaches’ most enduring mysteries.

TRUDIE ADAMS: THE LAST DANCE

Now, for the first time, a woman who was one of the last people to see Ms Adams alive has spoken publicly about seeing her friend leave the surf club and wave down a panel van at a section of Barrenjoey Rd called the “hitching spot”.

Lisa Ferguson, who went to primary school with Ms Adams and moved in the same social circles when they were teens, remembers bumping into her outside the club early on June 25 1978, during a concert by their favourite pop group, the Bilgola Bop Band.

Ms Adams was not feeling well and left the club alone to hitchhike to her family home in Central Rd, Avalon, as she had done dozens of times before.

At the same time, Ms Ferguson and a friend were making their way towards the hitching spot to get a lift.

Ms Ferguson, who now lives in Perth, remembered that they let Ms Adams go first as they waited in the surf club carpark for their turn.

Moments later, Ms Adams got into the passenger seat of a light-coloured Holden panel van that drove north towards the Bilgola Bends.

She was reported missing later that day by her parents, Charles and Connie, but no trace of her has been found and no one has been charged with her disappearance or death, even though police named a suspect they believed raped and murdered the teenager.

Ms Ferguson spoke to the Manly Daily as NSW Police confirmed Ms Adams’ case file was still with the Unsolved Homicide Unit and a $250,000 reward was still on offer for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for her death.

Homicide Squad commander, Detective Superintendent Scott Cook, said the case would be formally reviewed in coming months.

Ms Ferguson said: “Trudie came out to hitchhike home and we let her take the spot first. It was really just the etiquette to let the older person go first. We idolised Trudie, we looked up to her so we waited, sitting on a railing just outside the carpark and just waited for her to leave.”

Ms Ferguson said even though the friend she was with suggested they did not actually see Ms Adams get into the panel van, she had a memory of seeing her run across to the hitching spot and get into the car.

“And I’ve remembered that ever since,” she said.

Ms Ferguson and her friend got a lift three minutes later. They were picked up by an off-duty policeman who knew her parents.

“So we were very lucky, really, in hindsight,” she said.

When news of Ms Adams’ disappearance broke, the police officer suggested Ms Ferguson and her friend contact police and make a statement.

“He realised that we might have been the last people to see Trudie and that we might know a bit more,” Ms Ferguson said.

Ms Adams’ former boyfriend, Steve Norris — they had recently broken up — was at the surf club dance. He also told police he saw her get into a panel van just before 12.30am.

Ms Ferguson, who was interviewed once by police, said she believed Ms Adams was raped and killed that night.

“Some psycho raped her and murdered her and got rid of the body somehow,” she said.

In the first 10 weeks after Ms Adams disappeared, hundreds of police and volunteers conducted 15 searches — most of them in bushland along Mona Vale and McCarrs Creek roads, on the edges of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.

There were theories that she might have left the area without telling anyone, but she was close to her family.

Publicity about the case prompted 14 young women to come forward to report rapes and attempted abductions while they were hitchhiking between Mona Vale and Palm Beach in a period beginning in 1971.

Each victim, aged between 14 and 20, said they had been blindfolded, handcuffed, driven to bushland and raped at gunpoint. Most of the women were abducted at or near Newport.

Despite thousands of hours put in by homicide and northern beaches detectives, no firm lead on how Ms Adams vanished, or who took her, came to light.

The case hit the public spotlight again in 1995 when it was revealed a police taskforce, codenamed Loquat, had been set up to pursue new leads. Taskforce Loquat officers was also hoping it could find her remains. Members searched several bushland sites where they thought Ms Adams might be.

Loquat concluded that Ms Adams may have died at the hands of a group of unidentified mates who raped her after grabbing her off Barrenjoey Rd.

There was also a twist in the case. A homicide detective revealed at the time that someone, who was at the surf club dance that night, and who knew Ms Adams, told her mother they saw Trudie get into a lime-coloured VW Kombi van, not a panel van.

In 2008, on the 30th anniversary of Ms Adams’ disappearance, the State Government offered the $250,000 reward. The then Homicide Squad commander, Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford, said police had set up Strike Force Keldie and had new information that her body was in Ku-ring-gai National Park.

Det-Supt Beresford said that two suspects had been identified. He said they were part of a group of four men who had committed the 14 sexual assaults on girls between 1971 and 1978.

Police were confident that there were links between Ms Adams’ disappearance and the assaults.

Det-Supt Beresford said the victims more often than not had their eyes taped, were covered with a blanket and taken to the national park, where they were attacked.

As part of Strike Force Keldie, detectives Gavin McKean and Nicole Jones, of the Unsolved Homicide Squad, spent two years sifting through the case.

They said they believed they knew the answer to the mystery and revealed it to a coronial inquest into Ms Adams’ disappearance that began in January 2011.

Senior Constable McKean, who is no longer in the force, said he strongly believed that Ms Adams was kidnapped by a career criminal and convicted sex offender named Neville Tween, also known as John Anderson, and an accomplice.

Det McKean told the inquest Tween was also involved in the sex assaults reported by the other women. The detective told the inquest that something went wrong as Tween and his mate sexually assaulted Ms Adams and she had ended up dead.

Tween — who was described in the inquest as a “sexual deviant” — was 70 years old, when giving evidence.

He was serving an 18-year sentence at the time for a 2006 conspiracy to import $7 million worth of cocaine.

Tween told the inquest he was being “set up” by police.

The inquest heard, though, that Tween had spent time in jail over the 1975 kidnap and sexual assault of a man who they claimed had duped them over a drug deal.

This happened at night, in a clearing in bushland, just off Mona Vale Rd at St Ives.

Tween died of liver cancer in jail in 2013.

Bruce Cooper, a neighbour of the Adams’ in Avalon, who used Trudie as a babysitter for his little boy, Luke, said there had been local gossip about attacks on hitchhikers.

“There had always been rumours that there were guys in panel vans cruising up and down looking for bait,” Mr Cooper told the Manly Daily.

Deputy State Coroner Scott Mitchell said at the end of the inquest that Ms Adams had probably been killed soon after she disappeared

The teenager had died “as a result of a criminal act or acts or misadventure associated with a criminal act or acts by a person or persons unknown, Mr Mitchell said.

Another school friend of Ms Adams, Josephine Grieves, urged anyone with information to come forward.

“Just have some thought for family and friends who loved her,” Ms Grieves said.

If you have any information relating to the disappearance of Trudie Adams, email Manly Daily police reporter Jim O’Rourke at jim.orourke@news.com.au.

THE TRUDIE FILES

1960: Born on the northern beaches and goes to Avalon Public and Barrenjoey High schools.

June 25 1978: Trudie goes missing after hitching a ride outside Newport surf club.

1995: Police form Task Force Loquat to follow up on information that Trudie was grabbed off the street by a group of mates.

2008: Strike Force Keldie formed to follow up new leads. A $250,000 reward is offered.

2011: Coronial inquest finds Trudie died as a result of a criminal act by unknown people.

Lost in Sydney: The Series

Episode five — The Last Dance

Presented and researched by Jim O’Rourke

Produced and researched by Bryn Kay

Artwork by Fuzz Hamzah