For Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Procter, a week had not gone by in the previous six years that he had not thought about the investigation into the death of Novy Chardon.

When John Chardon was last year sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing his wife Novy, a weight was lifted off the seasoned cop’s shoulders.

But, he says it is not over. Novy’s body is yet to be found and he believes people helped Chardon dispose of her body.

DISAPPEARANCE OF NOVY CHARDON

NOVY Chardon was either strangled or smothered in her bedroom in the hours after she told her husband John she was taking half of everything and leaving him, lead detective Mark Procter believes.

Her children, then nine and seven, were asleep in nearby bedrooms of their Upper Coomera home.

It was February 6, 2013.

“We believe that when Novy returned home from dinner with friends she was most likely strangled by John Chardon in the bedroom and then John, with the aid of some associates, has disposed of her body,” Sen-Sgt Procter says.

“We believe he used associates from the wrong side of the tracks to assist him. If you have money, he’s got a lot of it, he can get things done.”

Theirs had not been a traditional love story. Chardon had met Novy when he was on business in Indonesia in 2001. She was just 24, working in guest relations for a Sheraton Hotel.

When she disappeared Chardon had a head start. It would be days before police were on the case. He had taken his young children out of school and was on a plane to Indonesia within two days.

As part of his work with the INOX range of lubricants, in which he made his millions, Chardon would often fly to Indonesia for business.

On February 9, 2013, police received a call from a friend of Novy’s saying that she had not heard from the outgoing mother of two for a number of days.

At that stage, it was simply a missing-person report. Uniformed police started making inquiries and learned Chardon had taken the children.

“We made inquiries with the school, all those stock-standard inquiries. It was ascertained there was something very suspicious about the whole thing,” Sen-Sgt Procter says.

“The friend provided information that (Chardon) was served with a notice of intended divorce and settlement and that 12 months ago, she had given him 12 months to leave the house, which had recently expired.

“She was taking steps to finalise and there was a demand of him to leave the house and she was taking half of everything, including the business and that occurred on the day she went missing. Obviously that’s red flags for everybody.”

Sen-Sgt Procter says police declared a crime scene at 93 Bridie Drive, the Chardon family home, on February 10.

“We spoke to John from Indonesia. He provided a story that he didn’t know where she was and that she was always in and out, flying around and that she would be around somewhere. There was nothing to worry about.

“However, all these other people were saying this was not the case, that she would never take the kids out of school. We checked with the school and they’d never been out before and all of a sudden the kids are in Indonesia, with John and their tickets were bought hours before the flight. This indicates there was no plan to take them, but had to go at the last minute, which also raised red flags.

“A short time after that (February 11) Novy’s car was located in Bowden St in Nerang and we managed to get CCTV footage of that car being moved.

“It was moved on the 8th and it was around about that time, John would have had to have been at the airport, with the kids leaving. We still don’t know who moved that car, but we believe it was someone John got to move the car, to give him an alibi as he got on the plane.”

He says they found out fairly early that Chardon had hired a carpet cleaner.

“We got on to it fairly early. The carpets had been cleaned. We ascertained that on the morning of the 7th, John had hired a carpet cleaner and he used products like ammonia and things like that to clean an area in the main bedroom.

“And from inquiries we knew that he didn’t sleep in that room. Novy slept in there, sometimes with the kids, sometimes not, but that was her domain in the house. They were living under the one roof, but had separated.

“He took it upon himself the morning after (she was killed) to go to Woolies and hire a steam cleaner and clean a section of carpet in the bedroom. More red flags were coming up.

“A large section of carpet was cut out and it was tested. There was no blood present, but there was a large spill of urine on the carpet, which is what he was trying to clean up.

“I believe that’s where Novy was killed. We can only assume she was either smothered or strangled or something like that, something that didn’t involve a lot of blood. There was no knife or gun.”

Chardon returned to Australia on February 25 and was interviewed for several hours by detectives. He told police he had taken a sleeping pill and fallen asleep and had not left the house on February 6.

“We went about checking his story. We found out that earlier that night he had gone to his factory at Logan, we seized the CCTV there, he turned up and he was only there for a period of around a minute. He ran in to pick something up and he’s gone back to the house.

“Then later on that night at 1am, when he said he was sleeping and that he’d taken a sleeping tablet, there’s a series of calls and text messages to different people, including his daughter.”

Novy was never seen again.

THE INVESTIGATION

Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months, then years. The case against John Chardon was building as a group of detectives meticulously went through evidence, following up more than 1000 inquiries, digging up back yards in the search for Novy’s body.

“We made inquiries with all of his business partners, all his living ex-wives. We asked people who had previously investigated the death of Maureen (Chardon’s former wife), to have another look at their investigation.”

Maureen had died of a drug overdose years earlier.

“There were allegations made into child sex offences that we referred on to the Child Protection Unit who completed the investigation into that.”

In August 2014 Chardon was sentenced to six years in jail for molesting and raping a teenage girl.

“We seized his motor vehicle, Novy’s motor vehicle. We did full forensic testing on the house, the factory, the cars, and even though there was a lot of speculative evidence, there was no real smoking gun, so to speak.

“We have dug up six different locations. Some of them to a greater extent then others, based on information that we had received at the time, which appeared credible. We obtained search warrants for various yards and properties. We have used excavators to dig up yards looking for Novy.

“Over the years we’ve followed up, I would say, well over 1000 lines of inquiry and information. Crime Stoppers information came in by the hundreds.”

Then, 12 months into the investigation, police were told about a man in the Philippines who may have information.

“We came about him through a loose associate, people we had interviewed and they asked us if we had interviewed the guy. He was talking to different people and we sought him out and he was very good, a lot of information.

“He gave evidence that John had previously approached him, for him to find someone to kill Novy while they were on holidays in the Philippines and in Thailand.

“He came over as a witness for the trial and was very credible.”

For years, police searched for Novy’s body, then three-and-a-half years after her disappearance they moved.

“There was a lot of false sightings of Novy. I don’t know if they were made to try and hinder the investigation or they were just people who honestly believe they saw her. There was not one that was ever substantiated or proven, or what you would say credible.

“It was three and a half years – we always started the investigation with the outlook and optimism that we would find Novy. Around 2016, we realised we were not going to find Novy, after three years. Even if we were to find her, her remains wouldn’t tell us too much.

“We had a lot of strategies in place to try and obtain further evidence of where Novy was and John’s involvement in it. Some of those strategies helped, some of them didn’t. We interviewed everybody. There was no stone left unturned.

“The fact that we’re not finding Novy, you get to a point where you think, ‘we’ve done everything we can’. We put it together, get an opinion from the DPP and say ‘go’ and that’s pretty much at that time, we went.”

THE TOLL IT TAKES

For Senior Sergeant Procter, the case was a part of his life for six years, a constant at the back of his mind.

“It’s probably one of the most, at times, frustrating investigations I’ve ever been involved in. We worked on it solidly for years. Every night we would just sit around at the end of the day and think ‘someone get a flash of light’.

“It was frustrating, we had no idea where she went.

“I certainly haven’t worked on an (investigation) continuously for that length of time.

“It’s a testament to the tenacity of the detectives to keep going. There would be months that would go by without anything being discovered or coming in and it’s just crunching a lot of data, numbers, things, to find nothing. A lot of going over things you’ve gone over before and looking for that one piece of information.”

He said the sentence Chardon was handed for the manslaughter was decent.

“When we got manslaughter, we were a bit disappointed. We thought we had a brief for murder, but we were very satisfied that the sentence reflected the gravity of the offence."

Asked what he thinks happened to Novy’s body, Sen-Sgt Procter shrugs his shoulders and says, “it would be a chocolate wheel guess”.

“My only insight would be that he owns a chemical company, if you have that knowledge of chemicals, but I really don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear anything come up.”

He says there would be no greater way to put this case behind him than to find Novy’s body.

“Indemnity has been offered before to people who may have assisted with disposing of her body. There is a reward there, we still want to find her, it’s very much still an open investigation, because we haven’t found Novy.

“From day one that was the intent of the investigation. To find Novy. It started off as a missing person investigation and it still is. In the meantime we’ve managed to convict her husband of her manslaughter, but we still haven’t found where she is.

“We’re hoping that now he has been convicted that someone may now come forward with the information, who wasn’t game to give the information before.

“We’d love to give closure to the family.”

If you know more, contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

FEBRUARY 6, 2013.

9.23AM: Novy buys a parking ticket, valid until 10.13am

1 0.40am: Novy meets up with friends at Madisons coffee shop and restaurant at Broadbeach Oasis Shopping Centre. She uses the car wash at the shopping centre car park.

12pm: Novy and friends leave the coffee shop. She is in good spirits. Organises to have her leather seats cleaned with the car wash company and books the appointment for Monday, February 13 at 10am.

12.30pm: Novy and a friend attend her lawyer, where she pays her solicitor fees. A letter is drafted, detailing a substantial amount of assets of the marriage, including the Upper Coomera home.

3pm: Novy drops her friend back to her car, parked at the Ferry Road Physiotherapy. She leaves to pick up her kids from school.

3.06pm: Novy’s lawyer sends the letter of settlement to John Chardon via email.

5.15pm: Alarm system for Candon Industries (Chardon’s business) is armed.

5.43pm: John Chardon calls Novy from their home phone.

6.58pm: Alarm system for Candon Industries is disarmed. CCTV from Inox confirms John Chardon attended the premises. He arrives in his black 2010 Toyota LandCruiser, unlocks the gate and drives and parks his car directly outside the entrance to the main office. It’s not possible to tell if anyone else is in the car.

6.59pm: Alarm system for Candon Industries is armed.

7pm: Novy, with her daughter, goes to a friend’s home, who completes an affidavit to assist with her divorce settlement.

8.30pm: Novy and her friend leave the home to go to Office Works at Southport to print the affidavit.

8.50pm: Novy and her friend go to the Chardon family home in Upper Coomera to drop off her daughter. John is in the garage, his black Toyota parked in the driveway.

9.02pm: Novy and her friend go to the BP service station in Upper Coomera to refuel her car. They go to McDonald’s and buy chocolate frappes.

Unknown time: Novy and a group of friends attend a Thai restaurant in Runaway Bay.

10.30pm approx.: Novy arrives home.

TIMELINE

February 6, 2013: Novy Chardon last seen alive.

February 8, 2013: John Chardon takes the couple’s young children to Indonesia.

February 10, 2013: Missing person report issued.

February 11, 2013: Novy’s car found at Nerang train station.

February 13, 2013: Police search bushland near the Chardons’ Upper Coomera home.

February 15, 2013: Police divers search the Nerang River.

February 16, 2013: Police search Bowden CT at Nerang, near where Novy’s car was found.

February 20, 2013: Police search Chardon’s industrial lubricant business.

February 22, 2013: Police and SES search bushland near Kopps Rd at Oxenford.

February 25, 2013: Chardon returns from Indonesia and is interviewed for several hours but released without charge.

March 4, 2014: Police dig up a Mt Nathan property owned by the family of pop star Rikki-Lee Coulter.

March 6, 2014: Police find part of a white ute, the same vehicle seen near Novy’s abandoned car at Nerang.

March 13, 2014: Police issue $250,000 reward for any information which could lead to charges against Novy’s killer.

January 28, 2015: Police search an Advancetown property but find no items of interest.

June 17, 2016: Chardon arrested over wife’s murder.

August 15, 2019: Murder trial starts, Chardon pleads not guilty.

September 9, 2019: Chardon found guilty of manslaughter

September 11, 2019: Chardon sentenced to 15 years in prison.

October 21, 2020: Chardon dies in prison.