Dear Rachelle podcast: Key murder suspect’s silence in murder investigation

The chief suspect in Rachelle Childs’ death – one of the country’s most perplexing murder mysteries – refused to answer days of questions, as her body was re-examined in a nearby morgue. Listen to the podcast.

“Prime suspect” Kevin Steven Correll spent days in a witness box, refusing to answer more than 50 questions possibly linking him to Rachelle Childs’ murder.

During this time he also learned the shock news her exhumed body lay in the morgue downstairs of the Glebe courtroom, in Sydney, more than five years after her burial.

Childs’ remains were re-examined in December, 2006, during the coronial inquest into her death, to analyse whether her badly burnt fingers had been deliberately severed from her body.

Murdered Bargo woman Rachelle Childs, whose burning body was found at Gerroa on June 8, 2001.

Rachelle Childs’ body was exhumed to be re-examined during the inquest into her death. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Police hoped fresh pathology evidence from the fingers would help point to Rachelle’s killer.

The court had heard evidence from several witnesses that Mr Correll told them that Rachelle’s fingers had been severed in a bikie hit.

LISTEN TO EPISODES 1-6 OF THE PODCAST BELOW:

Counsel assisting the coroner Peter Singleton now says it was “plainly significant if it could be shown that the fingers had been cut off because that would be known only to the murderer/s or someone the murderer/s had told”.

By day three in the witness box, Mr Correll refused to answer any questions, on legal advice, on the grounds that his answers might incriminate him.

By day four, he had formally declined to answer at least 50 questions, including:

You killed Rachelle Childs didn’t you?

What happened to Rachelle Childs that brought about the end of her life?

You raised for the consideration of police investigation … five people that became persons of interest, didn’t you?

Mr Correll’s apparent willingness to share rumours about the investigation struck the Childs family during the inquest.

“Think ‘K’ (Kevin) had an agenda, seemed like trying to push all attention away from him,” Rachelle’s mother Anne Childs wrote to a friend in the days before he gave evidence.

Barrister Peter Singleton, counsel assisting the coroner in the inquest of Rachelle Childs pictured in Sydney. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Mr Singleton remembered Mr Correll as calm in the witness box.

“If he was innocent, he was never going to confess. If he was guilty, he was never going to confess,” he said.

The exhumation pathology results proved inconclusive.

It could not be determined if Rachelle’s fingers had been cut off because the fire damage to her remains had been too severe.

For more information about our investigation, visit dearachelle.com.au

If you have any tips or confidential information, please contact investigative journalist Ashlea Hansen at [e-mail].

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