Terry Floyd murder suspect Raymond Jones has been charged with unrelated child sex offences
THE man named by Victoria Police as the prime suspect in the 1975 disappearance of Maryborough schoolboy Terry Floyd is due in court later this month to face child sex and other charges.
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THE prime suspect for abducting and murdering schoolboy Terry Floyd has been charged with unrelated child sex offences.
Raymond Kenneth Jones, 66, from Mildura, is due to front Ballarat Magistrates’ Court on August 27.
He is facing 28 charges relating to an historical sexual assault investigation by Victoria Police’s Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team in Ballarat.
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The charges include common law assault, gross indecency with a male, indecent assault upon a male and sexually assaulting a child aged under 14.
Victoria Police has previously named Jones as a suspect in the 1975 murder of Terry Floyd, 12.
Terry disappeared while on his way home to Maryborough from nearby Avoca.
While Jones was one of many men interviewed soon after Terry disappeared, he was initially not considered a serious suspect.
That was largely because police and Maryborough locals were convinced convicted paedophile, Francis Robert Drake, the son of the Maryborough mayor at the time, had abducted, sexually assaulted and killed Terry.
It wasn’t until the then homicide squad detective Ron Iddles reinvestigated Terry’s disappearance, while preparing for Terry’s 2001 inquest, that Drake, who died in 1991, was eliminated as a suspect and Jones firmed up.
Jones drove a fawn Holden panel van at the time Terry disappeared and has admitted being on the Pyrenees Highway, travelling from Avoca to Maryborough, at the time Terry was standing by the side of the road trying to get a lift home.
Three witnesses have told police they saw a vehicle similar to Jones’s panel van near a boy matching Terry’s description.
The then Sen-Sgt Iddles identified Jones as possibly being the person responsible for abducting Terry and interviewed him about the case in 2001.
“I came across information, which came from Buster Allen (a friend of Jones who is now dead) and I’ll put it to you that he told people that you were responsible for the actual death of Terry Floyd,” he told Jones during the interview.
“That you placed him in a mine shaft somewhere near Bung Bong Hill. What do you say to that?
Jones replied: “Nothing, it’s a lie.”
The Herald Sun confronted Jones in a Mildura car park and asked him questions about Terry’s unsolved murder.
That was back in 2010 when new evidence prompted Terry’s brother Daryl Floyd to start excavating the old gold mine near Avoca where he still believes his brother’s body was dumped.
When the Herald Sun spoke to Jones he insisted he wasn’t involved in Terry’s disappearance and had nothing to fear from the new search for Terry’s body.
“I’ve just about had a belly full of it all. I’m not going to just elaborate on anything,” Jones said.
“I’ve bloody got nothing to hide; it’s just that I’m bloody that sick of it all. I had nothing to do with it.”
Eight years on, Mr Floyd is still searching for his brother’s body.
Police have offered a $1 million reward to solve the Terry Floyd case.
Anyone with information about the disappearance of Terry Floyd case should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or www.crimestoppersvic.com.au