Rachelle Childs’ murder: Prime suspect in cold case Kevin Steven Correll found dead
The prime suspect in the cold case murder of Rachelle Childs has been found dead in Thailand but questions remain over how the alleged serial rapist died.
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The prime suspect in the cold case murder of Rachelle Childs has been found dead in Thailand.
Alleged serial rapist, murderer and liar Kevin Steven Correll, 69, was found dead during a holiday last week, but local authorities are yet to reveal exactly when he died, where, and how it happened.
Mr Correll was the key suspect in Rachelle’s murder for more than two decades, since the 23-year-old’s body was dumped by a lonely stretch of road in Gerroa, south of Sydney, in June, 2001.
Despite a lengthy police investigation, no one was ever charged over her murder.
One family member, who didn’t want to be identified, told this masthead: “I just know he was in Thailand, police turned up to his son Mitchell’s place to say he had passed away and an autopsy is being done.
“Not sorry he’s gone just sorry that Rachelle’s family aren’t going to get the justice that they so deserve.”
A DFAT spokesman confirmed on Sunday that consular assistance was being provided to Mr Correll’s family in Australia.
His estranged daughter, who wanted to be identified only as Jazz, found out her father was dead during a phone call with her brother on Saturday.
Jazz said: “I feel sad for his many victims.”
His death comes just months after News Corp started working with Rachelle’s family and ex-detectives to reinvestigate the case and uncover long-forgotten evidence in the podcast, Dear Rachelle.
Mr Correll was Rachelle’s boss selling used cars at Camden Holden when she died. He was voluntarily questioned by police over her death on three separate occasions.
No one was ever able to corroborate his alibi, but police couldn’t gather enough evidence to charge him.
By the time Rachelle died in 2001, Mr Correll was already a suspected rapist under is birth name, Kevin Cornwall.
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In one instance, police caught him with his pants down in the middle of an alleged sexual assault. The woman was screaming and telling officers on the scene she was assaulted.
The police officers later said Mr Correll had described the woman as “only a moll, she’s fair go for anybody” and even admitted he got “a bit carried away”.
Mr Correll was charged with sexual assault and tried in court, but the jury found he wasn’t guilty. This happened four times in the same decade.
In the 1980s, alleged rapists were often acquitted because their alleged victims were humiliated in court. Their clothing choices, past behaviour, and relationship history was all used to destroy their character, discredit their claims, and imply they were asking for sexual attention.
Another victim said Mr Correll responded to a spare room ad in the paper, but turned up at her house using a different name and looked at the room. She said he returned to her property later and raped her at knifepoint, threatening to kill her children if she screamed.
The woman was able to pick his mugshot out from a list of hundreds because she recognised his eyes, and a mark between his eyes. She was also humiliated on the witness stand, before a jury.
A third woman who accused Mr Correll of attempted rape incident had a strikingly similar story.
None of the victims knew each other or Mr Correll.
Past allegations aside, Mr Correll was likely among the last people to see Rachelle alive when she left work on the afternoon of June 7, 2001. Some people recalled Rachelle telling them that she was meeting up with someone at the Bargo Hotel that evening, but she didn’t tell anyone who it was. There was no CCTV inside the pub and only half the patrons at the pub that night were questioned by police.
After a brief telephone call with her sister in the car after leaving work, Rachelle was never heard from again.
A motorist later came forward and told police they saw a car matching the description of Rachelle’s prized 1978 Holden Commodore parked off the highway at about 10.20pm on June 7, about 200m from where her body was eventually found.
One man saw what could have been Rachelle’s car with its boot open in a similar area before 11pm, telling police at the time that one person was on the ground and another was standing. A couple then passed the car half an hour later and noticed the driver was slumped over the wheel as though they were asleep or trying to hide.
Another woman saw a fire in the bush at about 2.05am. She described an older, square-shaped car – similar to a Holden – made a U-turn about 20m ahead of her, with its headlights off. Ten minutes later, a security guard found Rachelle’s burning body.
A former employee of Camden Holden, Fiona, said Mr Correll “looked like shit” when he turned up to work the following morning. He and Rachelle had a good working relationship, but Fiona said he didn’t offer to help search for her and didn’t appear to care about her disappearance at all.
The following day, on June 9, Rachelle’s car was found parked out the back of Bargo Hotel. There was no CCTV at the hotel at the time, and only about half the patrons from the pub that night were questioned by police.
Mr Correll’s alibi was that he had driven from Camden to Campbelltown on June 7, before going to his partner’s house in Picton to find she wasn’t home. He then drove 10 minutes to Tahmoor where he ordered a bag of chips, a piece of fish, a battered sav and a coke.
His alibi bore striking resemblance to his alibi for an alleged sexual assault in the 1980s. During that case, he told police he ordered a bag of chips, a piece of fish, a battered sav, and a loaf of bread.
When the Dear Rachelle podcast team approached Mr Correll about Rachelle’s murder earlier this year, he responded: “Get out of here, will ya? F**k.”
Mr Correll had been in a long-distance relationship with a Thai woman, identified as Mina for the purpose of this report.
Mina described him as “very polite” but said their three-month romance lacked long-term potential.
“I broke up with him [in April],” she said. “Our opinions did not match, so I wanted to end our relationship.”
The investigation into Rachelle’s death was reopened by police earlier this year.
The investigation into Mr Correll’s mysterious death continues.
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 dearrachelle@news.com.au.
You can also join our Dear Rachelle podcast Facebook group.
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