Lake Macquarie abduction attempt months before Robyn Hickie, Amanda Robinson went missing

A woman, who was 11 when she was ordered into a stranger’s car at Blacksmiths in 1979, has come forward to tell her story. Months later, Robyn Hickie and Amanda Robinson vanished.

It is a tale told through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl that is as chilling as it is crucial in the hunt for a possible serial killer who has evaded capture for more than 40 years.

The recollection of an attempted abduction on a quiet road next to a lonely Lake Macquarie beach in 1979 where the would-be kidnapper yelled at the girl to “get in the f---ing car” as she sat frozen on her bike.

The girl was able to escape the clutches of her kidnapper near Blacksmiths Beach in eastern Lake Macquarie, although the terrifying ordeal has remained with the now 52-year-old for 41 years.

Newcastle News Photo Shoot

Police now fear two teenagers, who both went missing within a few kilometres and just four months after the attempted abduction, fell victim to the same attacker.

And now, the woman’s graphic description could hold the key to a police strike force hunting the suspected multiple killer – the person responsible for the suspicious disappearances of teenagers Robyn Hickie and Amanda Robinson.

Robyn was last seen at a bus stop on the southern lanes of the Pacific Highway at Belmont North on April 7, 1979 — about four months after the Blacksmiths attempted abduction and just 7km north.

Two weeks after Robyn disappeared, 14-year-old Amanda Robinson vanished from a Swansea street on her way home from a school dance – just 3km south of the Blacksmiths incident.

Amanda Robinson was last seen walking along the northern kerb of Lake Rd at Swansea on the night of April 21, 1979. Picture by Peter Lorimer.

“I looked quite older than 11, and the similarities between myself and Amanda were uncanny,’’ the abduction survivor said in her first ever public interview, given on the condition of anonymity.

Robyn Hickie disappeared from Belmont.

But it is not just the proximity of her incident which has interested the investigators from Strike Force Arapaima, set up two years ago to investigate the suspicious disappearances as well as the unrelated 1994 case of Gordana Kotesvki, who was abducted off a Charlestown street.

It is also the description of her attacker and the car he was driving – a distinct, green, mid-1970s, four-door Holden Torana sedan.

Strike Force Arapaima detectives first released information about the green Torana in November 2019, claiming they believed it could be linked to the Hickie and Robinson cases.

Then-Lake Macquarie crime manager Detective Chief Inspector Greg Thomas said the car was a “significant” line of inquiry for Strike Force Arapaima investigators.

A picture of a green 1979 Holden Torana released by police in the search for Amanda Robinson and Robyn Hickie from Swansea and Belmont. Picture: NSW Police

The woman involved in the attempted abduction saw news reports of the police appeal and contacted investigators.

She is now a key witness in Strike Force Arapaima investigations.

And considering the FBI now classifies a serial killer as a person who has committed two or more murders on people in separate incidents with an interval of time between the homicides, she could hold the key for detectives to finally put to rest decades of fears that a serial killer had been roaming Lake Macquarie and Newcastle.

Ungala Rd at Blacksmiths were the woman thwarted a kidnapping attempt in 1979. Picture by Peter Lorimer.

The woman was holidaying in Blacksmiths when she rode a borrowed bike along Ungala Rd on that January day in 1979.

“I was alone and all I remember is the green car and how quickly it was driven up to me,’’ the woman said.

“It was that fast that my front wheel crashed into the driver’s door. And then I saw him. He had longish hair and was skinny.

“But it was his eyes. They looked completely black, like the devil, and he just yelled at me to “get in the f--king car.

“He tried to open the door but he couldn’t because my bike wheel was pushing it closed and my feet were on the ground.

“I was so frightened and he was so angry.

“It wasn’t like you would expect, or what your mother had told you, that a man would try to take you by offering lollies or something to bait you.

Amanda Robinson

“He was just ordering me into the car, and he was so angry and forceful.

“I just jumped off the bike and ran. I was a state runner so I could run pretty fast, but he followed me.

“It was only then that I saw a man mowing the lawn so I ran to him and he turned out to be a policeman.’’

The ordeal has given the woman more than four decades of nightmares as she constantly relives the moment where she was nearly taken.

And she has no doubt what would have happened if she had followed the stranger’s orders.

“I know for a fact that if I got into that car I would be dead,’’ she said.

“I could see it in my eyes. And it gives me shivers to think that it happened to the two girls only a few months later.’’

The woman’s evidence immediately sparked interest with Strike Force Arapaima investigators, who had dispelled the long-held suggestion that Robyn Hickie may have hitchhiked the night she disappeared.

Although she had a history of thumbing rides in the past, an incident in Queensland had prompted her to stop. The only car she would have got into was if it was being driven by someone she knew, like a longish haired, skinny man in a green Torana.

“It gives me chills, thinking about those girls,’’ the survivor said.