Now as many as eight killings on the peninsula will be revisited by police.

The “cold cases”, including the high- profile abduction of Newport teenager Trudie Adams, are to be reviewed as part of a shake-up of NSW homicides.

About 400 of the Unsolved Homicide Unit’s cases across NSW will be reviewed before its detectives are assigned to focus on “priority” cases that police say could now be solvable.

A review team will look into the availability of witnesses, the use of new technology and whether there are lines of inquiry not followed up properly at the time of the original investigation.

The review includes all unsolved murders as well as disappearances and deaths that were found to be murder by the NSW Coroner going back as far as 1972.

Cold cases, such as the Adams case and that of Manly hairdresser Paula Brown be reviewed by veteran police outside the Homicide Squad.

Squad commander Scott Cook said senior detectives and commissioned officers from across the police force would help conduct formal case reviews.

Detective Superintendent Cook said they would look at the best opportunities to solve cases and the cases that could be solved now would be given priority for reinvestigation­.

“Every case is going to get reviewed and I’m sorry to the families if their case is less solvable than others,” he said.

“It’s not forgotten and it will be looked at again and again.”

TRUDIE ADAMS: 1978

AVALON business college student Trudie Adams’ abduction and presumed murder in 1978 while hitchhiking home from a dance at Newport surf club has been an enduring mystery.

In 2008 the NSW Government posted a $250,000 reward for information which would lead to the conviction of her killer or killers. Investigators said Ms Adams’ disappearance was linked to 14 known rapes and attempted abductions on the northern beaches in the 1970s.

An inquest into the 18-year-old’s disappearance, in the NSW Coroner’s Court in 2011, heard she was last seen getting into a Holden panel van on Barrenjoey Rd, Newport, on June 25.

Police suggested a career criminal named Neville Tween — also known as John Anderson — and three other men were suspects in the young woman’s disappearance. Tween denied the accusation and was never charged.

Deputy Coroner Scott Mitchell found her death was caused by a criminal act or misadventure by persons unknown. Ms Adams probably died soon after leaving the surf club just after midnight, he said.

PAULA BROWN: 1996

MANLY hairdresser Paula Brown, 30, disappeared on a night out with friends in Darlinghurst on May 4. Her battered body was found in bushland at Port Botany six days later.

Ms Brown was last seen in Oxford St, inebriated and talking with a bald caucasian man. She was supposed to catch the last ferry to Manly to meet her fiance.

A house painter from Pagewood, Martin Trejbal, was named as a “final person of interest” in the killing. In April 2005 the case went cold after Trejbal died in his backyard of a drug overdose.

CELESTE GILBERT: 2002

CELESTE Gilbert, 57, of Brookvale, disappeared in late 2002. Her remains were found in bushland at Mooney Mooney, on the Cental Coast, on June 2, 2003.

In 2011 the coroner found Ms Gilbert died as a result of homicide on or about August 20, 2002 but he could not establish the place or manner of death.

The inquest heard the death may have been linked to a family feud over property.

SCOTT JOHNSON: 1988

SCOTT Johnson’s body was found at the foot of North Head, near Blue Fish Point, in December 1988.

Police and the coroner initially said it was suicide but later investigations revealed it could have been murder.

A second coronial inquiry, in 2012, resulted in an open finding but a third inquest, in 2017, found a “gay hate attack” was responsible for the 27-year-old American mathematician’s death.

JAN O’TRUBA: 1972

JAN O’Truba, 20, of Mosman, was found dead at the bottom of an embankment in Oxford Falls with three bullet wounds in his head.

Mr O’Truba, a heroin dealer, had attended Balgowlah Boys’ High.

No one was charged with his murder but it was believed to be the first killing linked to the Sydney heroin trade.