Coroner to rule on mystery disappearance of Olinda’s Cuckoo restaurant owner Willi Koeppen

FOR more than 40 years mystery has surrounded the disappearance of chef Wilhelm “Willi” Koeppen from Olinda restaurant the Cuckoo. So what actually happened that night in 1976?

THE Coroner will make a ruling on one of the state’s most enduring mysteries — the disappearance of the country’s first celebrity chef and co-owner of the Cuckoo, Wilhelm “Willi” Koeppen.

Mr Koeppen vanished 42 years ago, and despite an ongoing police investigation, there is no concrete answer for his family.

The German-born chef, who would be 89 if he was alive, was last seen by friend Dr Bernard Butler sometime between 3am and 4am on February 29, 1976.

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Rebecca Johnston-Ryan, the counsel assisting Coroner Judge Sarah Hinchey, yesterday presented the summary in Mr Koeppen’s suspected death and said it is believed Mr Koeppen was murdered, on or near the date of his disappearance.

Ms Johnston-Ryan said on the night the chef disappeared he was drunk and abusing the restaurant’s staff, including his wife, Karin.

Family friend and GP Dr Butler, rang Mrs Koeppen at midnight and said he was going to visit Mr Koeppen at the restaurant.

The Cuckoo Restaurant in the Dandenong Ranges in 1976.

According to the summary, Dr Butler and Mr Koeppen drank until 2 or 3am at the Cuckoo in Olinda, then got in separate cars and drove to the doctor’s house, also in Olinda.

An hour or so later, Dr Butler watched his friend drive away in his Volkswagen Kombi towards his Ferny Creek home sometime between 3 and 4am — the last known sighting of Mr Koeppen.

Only half an hour later, Nivelles Love — a cleaner at the Cuckoo — saw Mr Koeppen’s van in the lower carpark at the restaurant, with its side door open but no one around.

Willi Koeppen.

Ms Johnston-Ryan said in the days leading up to his disappearance the chef had been depressed and talked about going to Poole in Queensland with two women.

According to court documents Mr Koeppen, who was prone to mood swings and erratic behaviour, suffered from alcoholism and “appeared” to be suffering from depression.

“His marriage to Mrs Koeppen had deteriorated and he was living in a cottage at the rear of the family home,” the documents said.

“Both Mr and Mrs Koeppen knew that the other was having extra marital affairs.”

Mr Koeppen’s children Andre and Sabina in 1976.

Karin Koeppen with daughter Daniela, 11, in 1976.

Speaking to the Lilydale & Yarra Valley Leader outside court, Mr Koeppen’s daughter Sabina Wakefield said her father’s disappearance was like an “open wound”.

Ms Wakefield, is one of three siblings, and was 16 and at boarding school in Adelaide at the time of her father’s disappearance.

“If only we could find something to give us peace of mind,” she said.

She said her father was not the type to disappear on purpose and was too eccentric to hide his tracks.

“He would often go to Queensland and we knew their marriage was over,” Ms Wakefield said.

She said at the time, her father’s disappearance did not seem real until she visited his cottage later that year and found all his belongings as he’d left them.

“I found it disturbing and realised he had not been home and something sinister had happened,” Ms Wakefield said.

Judge Hinchey is expected to hand down her findings later this week.